Three ways to design an English country garden (plus ample inspiration from the House & Garden archive)
The cottage garden
Defined by a colourful mix of flowers, the humble cottage garden is enduringly popular and easy to achieve.
The classic English cottage garden is a much loved idiom, popularised by influential gardeners and writers such as Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West, and epitomised by a delightful mix of colourful flowers from marigolds to hollyhocks. From medieval times, these gardens were productive as well as flower-filled, but in the Victorian era, the stylised cottage garden emerged, as depicted in the paintings of Helen Allingham. Today the cottage garden is having a major revival, reinvented for the 21st century to chime with our current penchant for naturalistic planting. The modern cottage garden comes in many forms: it might be a gravel garden where poppies and other colourful favourites are allowed to self seed, or a front-garden potager, with herbs, vegetables and fruit growing alongside flowers for cutting.
Garden designer Jo Thompson has seen a rise in demand for this style of garden in recent years. ‘People want a more relaxed feel and approach,’ she says. ‘A garden doesn’t have to be manicured or minimal à la Noughties, and the cottage garden style can be adapted to whatever space you have. An unkempt garden no longer signifies some kind of character defect – people judge less and look beyond the surface.’ She designs many country gardens with a mixture of joyous planting, especially roses. ‘The rose would have to be my key cottage garden plant, whether trained up and over into mounds to give a loose structure in a mass of surrounding perennials, or allowed to grow more loosely in a natural way.’
But perhaps the most important element of the cottage garden is its biodiversity and its ability to support a wide range of wildlife, from birds to pollinating insects – and the knock-on effect this has on humans. Jo concludes: ‘To stand and watch a bee work its way through all the flowers on one plant, to see how a plant changes as it moves through its life cycle, is the most amazing thing. You’d be hard pressed to find a more mindful and healing activity.’
A formal arrangement
Clipped topiary, elegant parterres and a sense of tradition go hand in hand with a period country house.
Large, historic country houses call for a garden with the same patina and sense of age as the building – even though the original garden may have to be remodelled if it has become rundown or neglected. Traditional topiary gardens or parterres bring a sense of symmetry and formality, and can be as simple or as elaborate as you like, from chess-board yew topiary to elaborate swirls of box hedging. Wide herbaceous borders and a good old-fashioned kitchen garden will also be the right fit. The surrounding landscape can be as important as the house itself, so consider opening up and framing views, perhaps with an avenue of trees, or creating focal points with statuary or a beautiful specimen tree.
The garden designer Xa Tollemache created at her former home, Helmingham Hall in Suffolk, is widely admired. Her advice for anyone making a traditional country garden is to get to grips with the topography, climate and possible limitations of a site before starting on a design. ‘On a first visit, I look at the features of the landscape, the house and surrounding buildings, and note things that jar. Often the removal of these elements clears the path for a good design.’
Hard landscaping should be sympathetic to the environment, using local or reclaimed stone or brick, and fencing unobtrusive and subtle, such as estate railings or traditional chestnut paling. Xa takes a tiered approach to planting: ‘I would start to plant trees as soon as possible, then look at structural plants such as clipped shrubs for architectural interest. Roses and climbing plants come next, followed by the fluff – beautiful perennials, lavender, grasses, bulbs and annuals to fill in the gaps.’ An old country house should have a garden that feels as though it has been there for years. The skill of a garden designer is to evoke this feeling, working with a light touch and creating subtle interventions, and then to tiptoe away and pretend they were never there.
MAY WE SUGGEST: The magnificent terrace garden of a townhouse in Bruges
Modern country
Carefully considered planting set against a geometric framework can add contemporary style to a tired space
A barn conversion or newbuild house is often left with a blank canvas of a garden, inviting the creation of a new contemporary-style plot. Modern planting schemes are ideally suited to this 21st-century approach, with bold drifts of perennials and grasses that link the garden to the landscape beyond. Often, designers juxtapose these modern meadows with a strong linear framework, comprising metal-edged beds, geometric infinity pools and square-cut yew or box. Surrounding topiary with ornamental grasses can instantly lift it into a more contemporary realm.
Debbie Roberts and Ian Smith of Acres Wild have designed hundreds of country gardens, using a clever mix of plants and hard landscaping to create gardens that look modern and smart, yet rooted in their surroundings. ‘Bringing a more contemporary feel to a garden is all about the materials you choose, the way you use them and the way you plant,’ says Debbie. ‘Bigger, bolder planting generally feels more modern, and in country gardens, where the landscape is often part of the scene, the foreground planting needs to scale up to the larger canvas. Deep borders allow for some self seeders to blur the outlines, providing a sense of naturalism that we think is important in a country setting.’
MAY WE SUGGEST: A modern garden inspired by the textural planting of New Zealand
Hard landscaping elements that convey a sense of modernity are key. ‘We use materials that complement the house and are often local and reclaimed,’ she adds. ‘They should weather well, enhancing their character over time. Locally sourced stone, brick and gravel are favourites, and we also use timber and mild steel that is allowed to rust.’ Whether a garden is traditional or contemporary, giving it a sense of place is vital to make it feel comfortable in its setting. ‘Every location is unique,’ says Debbie. ‘It’s important to reflect this in the garden design so that the house, the garden and the landscape all work together as a complete entity.’
Inspiration for your English country garden from the House & Garden archive
ANDREW MONTGOMERY1/33Knepp Castle Estate in West Sussex has been at the forefront of the rewilding movement for two decades. Now, its owners Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree have called in designer Tom Stuart-Smith to reimagine the previously overlooked formal walled garden. Key to the concept was the creation of a totally new topography within the walls, with gentle mounds and dips creating habitats for different plants and wildlife. Planted just over a year ago, this experimental area demonstrates a new, sustainable way of gardening.
Britt Willoughby Dyer2/33Stretching across a deep, dark valley in the Black Mountains, the gardens at Nant y Bedd are a response to the rugged, wild landscape that surrounds this former forester's cottage.
alister thorpe3/33Tantalising vistas draw you in all directions in this Chiltern Hills garden, where Gavin McWilliam and Andrew Wilson have used walls, apertures and clever planting to transform a disjointed plot into a series of interconnected spaces.
Sabina Rüber4/33Thirty years after creating the timeless gardens at Shute House in Dorset, landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe was tempted out of retirement to revitalise them for its new owners, creating a fantastical, verdant masterpiece which draws on history, philosophy, psychology and art. Pictured are classical busts of stern-faced Achilles, Neptune and Zeus, which are framed within beech hedging.
Britt Willoughby Dyer5/33Blossom-covered boughs and spring bulbs provide welcome colour at this time of year in the Cotswold garden of Clare Pike, who runs flower business Rich Pickings with Kate Gordon Lennox. Clare’s cutting garden is bordered by pleached hornbeams on one side and an old wall on the other, with a view past the greenhouse to the fields beyond. Tulipa ‘Apricot Impression’ is grown in a box-edged beds, with cardoons in another.
Ngoc Minh Ngo6/33Texture is key in any garden, and at this Dan-Pearson-designed garden in Devon, the vegetable garden is a thing of beauty. Contrasting textures provide visual appeal, with the ferny foliage of fennel dividing rows of broad beans and rhubarb.
Eva Nemeth7/33The garden of an Oxfordshire manor house has been reinvigorated over many years by the designer Arne Maynard, with bold, distinctive new elements set against the existing framework. ‘I always start with a master plan, but often the gardens are big and need to be broken down into phases,’ he says. ‘Plans change and evolve as the owners start using the space. It allows each part to develop in a more organic and natural way – and stops the garden from feeling over-designed.’
Eva Nemeth8/33On the Backhouse Rossie Estate in Fife, Caroline Thomson and her husband Andrew haved nurtured a family legacy by cultivating disappearing varieties of daffodil in their walled garden as well as hosting an annual festival, which shows this uplifting flower to be anything but ordinary.
Richard Bloom9/33Having grown up amid the gloriously untamed romance of Beckley Park in Oxfordshire, Amanda Feilding has a deep-rooted connection with its maze of topiary and rose gardens, patinaed pathways and still, dark waters, which themselves exude a soulful, atmospheric presence. Pictured isaA view of the double row of clipped topiary pieces in the yew garden from the top floor of the hunting lodge. Planted by her grandfather in the Twenties, the yew was shaped into these forms by Amanda’s father Basil in the Thirties and early Forties.
Andrew Montgomery10/33If you like the look of topiary but want it to feel more naturalistic, take inspiration from this parterre at Chevithorne Barton in Devon, where the low box hedging is shaped into curved rather than straight lines, which fit with the soft, naturalistic feel of the garden.
Eva Nemeth11/33A wide border, like this 3-metre-wide one at Alasdair Cameron's Devon garden, can be a spectacular way to experiment with planting. This one is filled with towering late-summer perennials and grasses in dusky, muted colours with dashes of orange from rudbeckias and heleniums. ‘I like to think of the river as an influence,’ says Alasdair. ‘The key structural plants are like river boulders, with everything else flowing and bouncing around them. I like to run particular plants through a space, then drop out into something else. It’s about rhythm and crescendo, and then bringing it down again.’
Eva Nemeth12/33On the edge of Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire, Belcombe Court is an imposing Georgian house with a landscaped garden that is now a blend of restored 18th-century features and contemporary additions. Like a miniature Stourhead, the landscape gardens at Belcombe include picturesque features such as a stone rotunda, a cottage orné and a grotto, as pictured.
Britt Willoughby Dyer13/33An enclosed gravel garden is overlooked by an ancient building shipped from France in this Cotswolds garden designed by James Alexander Sinclair, its wooden columns draped with fragrant ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ roses. Purple Monarda ‘Scorpion’, soft pink Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Rosea’ and Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Album’ throng the network of paths.
Britt Willoughby Dyer14/33Between the drive and the kitchen, a formal herb garden of box-edged beds encloses yew topiary and a profusion of herbs.
Andrew Montgomery15/33The borders in the sunken garden of St Giles House continue to provide interest right through the winter, with graceful movement from tall mauve Verbena bonariensis and white Japanese anemones, soft texture in mounds of purple sage and pale Stipa tenuissima, and structure and drama in the fiery foliage of Cotinus ‘Grace’.
Andrew Montgomery16/33Originally laid out in 1902, the sunken garden has perennial borders designed by Jane Hurst, backed by cubes of copper beech on the terrace.
Andrew Montgomery17/33At Plas Brondanw in Snowdonia, the former house of the architect Clough Williams-Ellis, the playful statuary and elaborate topiary of the Italianate garden stand out in stark relief in winter.
Andrew Montgomery18/33Topiary gardens can get lost in the abundance of spring and summer, their outlines blurred by lush growth. But, in winter, their intricate, clipped shapes shine, the patterns beautifully accentuated by a sprinkling of snow or a heavy frost. Created over the past three decades by its owner, the garden at this Hampshire manor house and its elaborate series of parterres looks like an utterly enchanting – especially in winter. Snow brings with it an embracing silence, shutting out the rest of the world and focusing the eye and the mind on the garden, as it shimmers with an icy, otherworldly beauty.
Eva Nemeth19/33From mushrooms to cinnamon buns and mitres to Toto the dog, the topiary that populates Louise and Fergus Dowding’s Somerset garden is an ever-changing extravaganza of shapes and characters, which look especially enchanting covered in winter’s frosts.
Eva Nemeth20/33Dan Pearson's Somerset smallholding is one that is rolling and fanciful, with just the right amount of garden je ne sais quoi. Dan appreciates the property for its bounty, but also for its ever-changing growth from season to season, its plantings blooming and hibernating depending on the time of year.
Andrew Montgomery21/33Inheriting a family garden is a wonderful thing, but it can also be inhibiting, as Sarah Price found out in 2013, when she moved to the house that had belonged to her grandparents in rural Wales. With so many nostalgic memories of the garden from her childhood, she has found it difficult to make her own changes. ‘It was like a children’s paradise,’ she remembers. ‘Since moving here, I have struggled with what to do with the garden, wanting it to stay the same, almost worshipping the way it used to be. But now I’ve reached the point where I can start again, and I’m making plans.’
Michael Sinclair22/33From the wildflower meadow to the walled kitchen garden, the American owners of this expansive country garden on the Wiltshire-Somerset border have brought new life to its every corner, filling it with visual interest and productive planting at every turn.
Sabina Rüber23/33After moving into a derelict Herefordshire farmhouse with her family, Lorna Vaughan set about gradually making a captivating garden from a few acres of farmland. She was not sure exactly what she wanted, apart from walls and romantic roses, based on a lingering vision of the Gardens of Ninfa in Italy, and some hedges for structure. 'There's nothing more beautiful than hedges on a frosty winter's day,' she says. She decided not to enlist the help of a designer, but admits, 'Occasionally, I yearned for someone to come sweeping in and do everything perfectly.' Apart from a line of broken old poplars, there were no trees, so Lorna began by planting acers and sorbuses in groups of three, together with a now stately walnut.
Hugo Rittson Thomas24/33Grasslands and meadows on chalk can be some of the richest and most remarkable botanical habitats in Britain, with up to forty different species found in a single square-metre patch. An early autumn dawn mist shrouds the valley at Highclere Castle and, as the wildflower meadows approach the end of their season, field scabious (Knautia arvensis) puts on a final flourish before the hay is cut.
Andrew Montgomery25/33The Oxfordshire garden of art dealer, writer and broadcaster Philip Mould has an array of small formal beds with little box topiary shapes intersperced with herbs such as lavender and sage.
Eva Nemeth26/33Softness can be a great tool in a country garden. Here at Libby Russell's Somerset garden, a curving, flowing border is filled with flowering shrubs and herbaceous perennials for year-round interest. Colours are muted here, with airy grasses such as Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ and Hakonechloa macra mingling with Echinacea ‘White Swan’ and native devil’s-bit scabious, Succisa pratensis. Clipped yew underpins the softness, with a backbone of shrubs in pretty pinks and whites.
Simon Upton27/33A tangle of climbers is always a soft romantic look. Here at Bowood House in Wiltshire a combination the gardener has used a combination of of Clematis armandii and red roses.
Andrew Montgomery28/33A metal arbour adds instant romance - swathe it in roses, wisteria or a grape vine - as here in Thomas Hoblyn's garden. Find similar arbours at Harrod Horticultural.
29/33Create a hedge formed of rose plants - Rosa Rugosa works well for this as it forms glossy red hips in winter. Rosa 'Wild Edric' from David Austin Roses is a highly scented beauty.
Simon Brown30/33Topiary is the perfect way to add structure to your country garden. In this Cotswolds garden box hedges, beech trees and walls of topiary yew lead to a gothic window.
Andrew Montgomery31/33Planting a herbaceous border filled with perennials is a wise move for those in favour of the country garden look. Each year you are pretty much guaranteed a bigger and better display as your plants grow and you divide them. Here at Arne Maynard's Allt-y-bela an area of herbaceous planting borders the kitchen garden.
Andrew Montgomery32/33Plant a profusion of ruby red french marigolds to edge vegetable beds or sweet peas - their vibrancy tempts away bugs which would otherwise eat your prime plants.
Andrew Montgomery33/33Isabel & Julian Bannerman have created wide sloping borders in their Cornish garden. These display a lush jungle of herbaceous plants and are bisected by shallow steps and wooden obelisks.
