The Lyndalls

Over the last twenty years, Stuart Donachie has created a remarkable garden. The house, draped with Rosa banksia and clematis, dates from the 16th century. The garden, surrounding three ponds excavated by Stuart, has curving borders dug out of the heavy clay, which provide a range of growing conditions to satisfy this passionate plantsman.

Grendon Court

The scale of Kate Edwards’s vision for the garden is breathtaking: part of the house was buried to create a new garden and the hillside was excavated to form a new terrace. On either side of the main lawn, borders filled with perennials run from the house terrace to borders of box interplanted with Pennisetum. Steps up the steep bank lead to the upper garden, where a path through late summer-flowering herbaceous planting leads to a swimming pool screened by Miscanthus ‘Malepartus’.

Blackbrook Estate

Since 1994, the Vaughans have carried out extensive work on the informal garden around the house. However, the showstopper is the once-derelict walled garden. Glasshouses have been restored and now house everything from vines and Geranium maderense to apricot, peach, nectarine and citrus trees. Paths have been laid between overflowing borders, a parterre of roses is underplanted with salvias, yew hedges divide the space and the garden looks as though it has been in place for ever.