Pure & simple

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

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

Behind a high beech hedge, where southwest London meets wild common land, garden designer Lucy Willcox has created a hidden sanctuary blending mid-century structure with contemporary naturalistic plan

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

Within a framework of mature trees, this naturalistic Surrey garden contains a mix of informal planting and formal topiary

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