The Gardens that Designers Create for Themselves

Garden designers are masters of crafting beauty for others – but what happens when they turn their vision inward? In her new book ‘Wonderlands’, Clare Coulson steps inside the personal sanctuaries of Britain’s most acclaimed garden designers to discover the intimate spaces they call their own. She speaks to Jessica Jonzen about what she found

THE GARDEN DESIGNED BY HARRY AND DAVID RICH AT HARRY’S HOME IN POWYS. IMAGE: ÉVA NÉMETH

Journalism is an ideal profession for the incurably curious. It offers the rare privilege of slipping behind the scenes, posing the questions others might shy away from, and gaining access to the otherwise off-limits. For Clare Coulson – the former Telegraph fashion editor turned garden writer – her new book Wonderlands: British Garden Designers at Home felt like the ultimate assignment: an intimate glimpse into the private gardens that leading designers create for themselves.

“I’ve always been nosy and inquisitive, completely fascinated by the creative process,” Clare says, reflecting on her shift from fashion to horticulture. “Interviewing designers is my favourite part of the job, whether in fashion or gardening. So to be able to visit the personal gardens of some of the UK’s most influential talents and to capture them through original photography, felt like a real privilege and a total joy.”

A collaborative effort with the garden photographer Éva Németh, Wonderlands takes readers on a visual and sensory journey into the gardens of 18 of Britain’s most celebrated landscape architects and garden designers, including Tom Stuart-Smith, Miranda Brooks, Harry and David Rich, Sarah Price and Arne Maynard. It offers a rare insight into the creativity, philosophy and craftsmanship that have transformed these designer’s own spaces into deeply personal, evolving sanctuaries.

The garden designers profiled in Wonderlands are as varied in their approaches as they are in their individual design styles. From the grandeur of Arabella Lennox-Boyd’s Gresgarth Hall in Lancashire to Chris Moss’s rented Sussex cottage garden and Butter Wakefield’s miniature London meadow, these spaces highlight the diversity and dynamism of British garden design. “Each garden is very different – and often a world apart from what these designers create for their clients,” says Clare. “I wanted there to be a balance of different types of garden.” What connects them all, she observes, is a shared spirit of experimentation. “It’s so important for them in their practise – they’re always pushing boundaries, testing new ideas, finding different ways of doing things. Their gardens are literal test beds.”

Clare found herself “in awe” of Nigel Dunnett’s garden, located in a remote, rural spot near Sheffield on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, set on the site of a steep, disused quarry. “When he arrived, the land was completely wild, and he spent three years clearing it by hand, painstakingly removing sycamore saplings and building this extraordinary garden.” Rather than discard the sycamores, he repurposed each felled tree into sculptural log piles – striking features that animate the landscape year-round. His approach is marked by a bold sense of invention and an ongoing spirit of experimentation. “He read in a book about Humphry Repton (the Georgian landscape designer) about how he planted three saplings into one hole which results in these ‘pops’ of birch trees and so tried it.”

TOM STUART-SMITH’S GARDEN IN HERTFORDSHIRE, FEATURING THE LONG CORTEN STEEL WALL AND WATER TANKS FROM HIS 2006 GOLD MEDAL-WINNING GARDEN AT THE RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW. IMAGE: ÉVA NÉMETH

At Tom Stuart-Smith’s garden at his Hertfordshire barn – once agricultural wasteland – Clare discovered how it has evolved in step with his design philosophy. Today, it is also home to the Serge Hill Project for Gardening, Creativity and Health, a collaboration with his wife, Sue Stuart-Smith, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and author of the bestselling The Well Gardened Mind. At its heart is a one-acre plant library, a living archive designed to help schoolchildren, students and locals observe plant behaviour up close. Nearby, the Sunnyside Rural Trust trains people with learning disabilities to propagate plants in a purpose-built nursery, with sales supporting the initiative.

Sarah Price’s garden in Monmouthshire reveals itself to be the source material for the exquisite, painterly schemes she creates. Finding she couldn’t ever get the upper hand with the weeds, she replaced the original soil with three different sizes of recycled sand and gravel which helps plants grow full and sturdy, with no need for watering. Clare says she thinks of Sarah’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023 gold medal winning Nurture Landscapes Garden “every week” and could feel its sensibility in Sarah’s own garden, despite its obvious differences. “There’s quite a wild orchard and you have to crouch down and go through a tunnel which is an amazing child-like experience.”

Indeed, the book’s title Wonderlands speaks to the immersive, awe-inspiring nature of the gardens featured. For Clare, the garden Harry and David Rich created at Harry’s home in Powys, brought out a sense of her own child-like wonder. “It’s pure Hansel and Gretel; you have to walk down an old track and cross a river, and the plants are so tall, spilling over the paths and you have to push them back. There’s a feeling of exploration and discovery.”

Clare’s own garden is beautiful in its own right (just take a look at her Instagram @clarecoulson) although she doesn’t get to spend as much time in it as she’d like to. Having moved from London back to her native Suffolk a decade ago and falling in love with gardening, she decided she wanted to transition from fashion journalism to gardening writing. “It’s not a straightforward switch and there is a huge learning curve with horticulture which you’ll never even scratch the surface of but there are so many parallels. I also just really love garden people,” she says. “Whether you’re going to meet a grower or a designer, everybody has a sort of evangelical feeling about plants and gardens and so they just want to share their knowledge and experience. There is no downside to growing plants and making the world a better place, creating habitats for wildlife.”

So what are the biggest lessons she’s learned as a garden writer? “That there is no such thing as a ‘low maintenance’ garden. Unless you have some boring monoculture, gardens are time consuming and when you’ve got young children and you’re busy working it’s hard to find the time. But when I’m in the garden it’s a kind of meditation; I love it so much. I just long to be retired!”

SARAH PRICE’S GRAVEL AND SAND GARDEN IN MONMOUTHSHIRE. IMAGE: ÉVA NÉMETH

Clare is also learning to curb the impulse to order plants on a whim, a familiar temptation for many gardeners. “It’s so easy to get carried away ordering bulbs and then they arrive and you have no idea where you’re going to put them,” she admits. Through her own growing experience, she has become more attuned to the structure and scale of planting. “I’ve learned about the importance of height – the beautiful tall fennels at Great Dixter are a great example.”

One of the key lessons she took from working on Wonderlands was the designers’ rigorous selectiveness. “They don’t just settle for something, which is kind of what I would do – ‘oh this Magnolia available at the nursery, I’ll get this.’ No, they actually seek out the most beautiful cultivar and only buy that. They’re very specific in their choices.”

Wonderlands serves as a reminder of the power of design to transport us, to challenge our perceptions, and to offer a glimpse into something more profound; the importance of slowing down, of embracing the natural world and understanding our place within it.“ More than anything, I hope people come away with a sense of the wonder that gardens can offer,” says Clare.

“In the same way that designers have great influence and a responsibility to encourage gardens to embrace more sustainable practises, as a writer I just want to spread ideas and the positivity that comes from being in a beautiful garden.” Wonderlands, Clare says, is very much “a book for people who love gardens.” But beyond that, she hopes it encourages others “to get out there, experience nature, and find joy in it.”

ARNE MAYNARD’S GARDEN IN MONMOUTHSHIRE. IMAGE: ÉVA NÉMETH

EMILY ERLAM’S LONDON GARDEN. IMAGE: ÉVA NÉMETH

ALASDAIR CAMERON’S DEVON GARDEN: ÉVA NÉMETH

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