When writer Sheila M Averbuch and her husband moved into their Pencaitland home in East Lothian over 20 years ago, the garden was little more than a flat upper lawn with a steep slope down to the bung

Not every gardener would look at a plot dominated by an impassable slope and think, ‘I can do something with this’, but Ruth Howell is one of them. In 2008, she and husband Peter, both professionals i

In December 1997, we moved from a tiny London garden to our new home, Old Park Barn in Buckinghamshire. It was daunting – a huge leap of faith from gardening in an urban courtyard to essentially an ov

To hide my new garden’s nakedness, I planted trees. Damson and mirabelle plum, ‘Discovery’ and reinette apples, two pears, a quince and a ‘Nottingham’ medlar. There was a purple-leaved filbert, a ‘Che

Purple punctuates the planting: here an acer, verbena and some pinky-purple crinum, or swamp lily, stand out

Butter Wakefield has spread her wings. Renowned for her beautifully detailed city gardens, she now has a five-acre, award-winning design in her portfolio. “I love our London gardens, but being able to