NEW Beginnings
After 28 years at West Dean, it was time for Jim Buckland to start a garden of his own, and he views the blank canvas he took on with his partner Sarah Wain in the village of Boxwood, West Sussex, as a dynamic process, offering an ever-changing sense of renewal
WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS NICOLA STOCKEN
In the front garden, a paved path leads to a circular lawn overlooked by specially trained and crown lifted Young’s weeping birches.
More is LESS
By cramming in a multitude of plants at this East Lothian contemporary coastal cottage garden, designer Lynn Hill has created a surprisingly low-maintenance setting, where a day’s work is over before it’s started
WORDS CLARE FOGGETT PHOTOGRAPHS RAY COX
This image Pathways through billowing planting lead to a tucked-away bench. Opposite The path to the front door leads past an Urbis water feature that forms a key focal point.
Pride of PLACE
Visitors to the gardens at Glenholme Herbs in Dorset, will discover fragrant herbs used ornamentally in beautiful pollinator-friendly planting displays that prove their worth beyond the culinary and the medicinal
WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS CAROLE DRAKE
This image The intensely colourful bracts of Salvia viridis in shades of indigo, pink and violet. Opposite Palest pink spires of bee-friendly Stachys officinalis ‘Rosea’ by the house.
This image The folly garden’s centrepiece was inspired by a local 12th-century abbey.
Opposite The spiky pincushion flowers of Astrantia major
DOUBLE TIME
The gardening partnership between Aidan Donnelly and his grandfather, Joe, has grown in line with their horticultural knowledge as they’ve developed their Ayrshire folly garden into a modern Arts & Crafts masterpiece
WORDS NICOLA TODD-MACNAUGHTON PHOTOGRAPHS RAY COX
Horticultural wisdom is often passed down through the generations, but for Aidan Donnelly, 29, and his grandfather, Joe, who is 75, the flow of knowledge has happened in reverse. This grandfather and grandson duo have spent the past 20 years creating a garden out of four acres of wasteland at Joe’s home in Kilwinning, Ayrshire. To begin with they had no gardening knowledge, but much has changed since then.
“Papa and I have gardened together for as long as I can remember,” Aidan explains. “But in the early days, having no plan or horticultural knowledge, we experimented with buying plants from the reduced sections of garden centres. Unsurprisingly, we chose all the wrong things.”
The folly is one area of this garden that the pair have poured blood, sweat and tears into – quite literally. As its name suggests, the centrepiece of the space is an ornamental building with no practical purpose – a folly. The 6m tall facade, supported by
buttresses on two sides, takes its inspiration from the south transept of a local abbey. It was built by Joe over four summers, from 2011 to 2015 and, looking at it now, it appears to have been part of the landscape for centuries. “When we moved here 25 years ago, my plan was to create something eye-catching on the area of land directly opposite the house – a focal point for us to admire as we looked onto the garden from indoors,” says Joe.
It was during a trip to Ireland in 2010 that Joe saw a folly and took his inspiration. In his late teens and early twenties Joe had lived in Ireland where he trained as a monk before meeting his now wife, Muriel, and so a folly based on the design of an abbey was apt. “The design of the folly had to be relevant to both our family and our locality. Kilwinning is home to a beautiful 12th-century abbey, which was built by Tironensian monks. It made perfect sense to me to draw inspiration from its ruins for our garden,” Joe explains. As the folly was being built, Aidan’s enthusiasm for gardening and his desire to learn more about the hobby he shared
GRAND DESIGNS
Discover the incredible winning gardens and the talented people who designed them at this year’s prestigious Society of Garden + Landscape Designers’ Awards
Award.
The Society of Garden + Landscape Designers announced the winners of their annual awards earlier this year. Among the winning gardens were several small plots fi lled with stylish details and clever ideas for making the most of tight, and often awkward, spaces. We explore the worthy winning schemes – and the rest of 2025’s prestigious winners.
The softly illuminated roof terrace of this North London garden by Adolfo Harrison, which scooped the Roof, Podium or Raised Courtyard