A good time to visit The Old Rectory in Doynton is as dusk falls on a frosty December evening. Driving in through the gate, you’ll be cheered by the sight of two illuminated Portuguese laurel cylinder

It was while filming an episode of Lewis in an Oxford college garden that Tom Simpson fell in love – and within moments decided to abandon his peripatetic life in film and retrain as a garden designer

The quiet beauty of winter sets the stage in this garden, where topiary shapes and the borrowed landscape are the main performers

In winter the bones of the formal garden at Owlpen Manor come to life. Highlighted with frost, the dark greens and greys of hedges and topiary take on the patina of an engraving. The manicured parterr

John and Jenny Brett have created an all-year garden design at St Mary’s, combining formal plant structures with colourful insect-friendly perennials, but in winter, when dusted with white and dancing with shadows, the garden shimmers

The garden in winter can often seem like something to be endured rather than enjoyed for gardeners who dash to garden centres at Easter, departing with cars brimful of petunias and bags of compost. Bu