Gardens: English beauty

A modern take on the English cottage garden is the gardening style of the moment. It was all over Chelsea like an exceptionally charming rash: a more naturalistic and cohesive version of cottage garden planting, held firmly in place by strong, structural lines and killer topiary. But just because Chelsea show garden designers pull it off, with their burly landscaping teams and eye-watering sponsorship deals, doesn't always mean you can do it at home, which is why it is so satisfying to see a fine living, breathing example of the style at Linden Barn, in Hampshire, the one-third acre garden of Terry and Vanessa Winters, who run a design company.

The Winters are garden design groupies, which is perhaps why their plot feels so on trend. When they first started gardening at Linden Barn in 1998, they fell for the work of designer Dan Pearson ("He became our hero," Terry says). Their first experiment was a Pearson-inspired meadow, both à la mode at the time and a precursor of the look they have ended up with. They loved the easy, natural appearance of a meadow and its seeming simplicity. "We thought it looked quick and easy, but we didn't get the soil right at first and by the second year it looked dreadful."

A visit to the grounds of a nearby stately home, West Green House, showed them the way a naturalistic style could be combined with formality. "We saw herbaceous borders held in by box hedges, and knew this was exactly what we wanted to do here." Their latest design crush seems almost inevitable: "We are enthralled by Tom Stuart-Smith," Terry says. "We follow him fastidiously."

In their own garden, the structure is provided by low box hedges around the borders, by pleached hornbeam hedges and by topiary balls. Balls have become a bit of a theme. It started almost by accident, with just a few, but the Winters ran with them and now there are box balls in pots, box and yew balls through the borders, box lollipops floating above planting and a number of large stone balls. It is one of the things that marks out this modern take – a hugely confident approach to the garden's evergreen structure. Where one gardener might have bought two or three box balls, the Winters have dozens, and they give the garden a strong sense of unity.

"When most people think of cottage gardening, they think of a jumble of plants and colours, one of everything," Terry says. "But that way plants are lost. You don't get the striking effect that's possible when you use plants in large numbers."

Instead, when he finds a plant that works well, he buys it in sevens, nines or more, creating a big drift. It's an approach very similar to that used by Tom Stuart-Smith in his gold-medal-winning Chelsea garden this year, which had an extremely limited palette of plants.

Another difference between traditional cottage gardening and this style, Terry says, is a restrained use of shrubs. Here, perennials predominate, with shrubs acting as the evergreen frame.

Some of these perennials have become serious signature plants, used in their hundreds. Early in the summer, it is alliums, mostly 'Purple Sensation'. A little later, foxgloves step in (the white, orchid-like 'Saltwood Summer'); later still monardas, heleniums, achilleas and crocosmias. Terry finds the latter (particularly the large-flowered, orange-red 'Babylon') has dual use, because it provides a strong arching outline of leaves in early summer, as well as the later sprays of colour.

"We nick ideas off television programmes and gardening magazines," Terry says. "We visit flower shows and make mood boards when we see something we like." It is that openness to ideas that means this garden never stands still.

Linden Barn, near Winchester, is open by appointment as part of the National Garden Scheme. Email terry.winters@lindenbarn.com for details.

Modern cottage plants

Late spring
Allium 'Purple Sensation'
Aquilegia 'White Star'
Camassia leichtlinii 'Alba'
Centranthus ruber
Euphorbia griffithii 'Fireglow'

Summer
Digitalis purpurea 'Saltwood Summer'
Digitalis purpurea 'Pam's Choice'
Campanula persicifolia alba
Delphinium 'Excalibur Pure White'
Geranium 'Johnson's Blue'
Lupinus 'My Castle'

Late summer
Verbena bonariensis
Helenium 'Red Army'
Crocosmia 'Babylon'
Dahlia 'Bednall Beauty'
Achillea 'Fanal'
Monarda didyma

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