You’d expect one of my favourite gardens (there aren’t many) to be a friend’s garden: partiality may be unavoidable. But my pleasure is based on more than that – this is just a truly good garden .

So, what’s so good?

Well, this was (below) until it was removed to be improved. The crocosmia (Lucifer) are massed with some standard clipped Parrotia persica and are a real knock out.

I visit regularly and there is always a treat. This was the entrance one time…

and another time…

and again:

On my last visit I began to think that delicacy is one of the joys…

And simplicity – the sun was too bright  for this to really show you, but the great pleasure is in the foliage of the irises against the grey wood.

But then there’s drama:

Massing plants is wonderfully effective but adding the frame of the picket fence in a offset pattern so that they read against one another, changing as you walk through, is a masterstroke. And the black wood provides a sharp contrast to floweriness. You can see better how they are offset here:

My regular treat when I visit is whatever is happening on the steps by the front door, as here, in no particular order:

(These displays are just for me – the garden isn’t normally open to visitors, you understand.) I think what I love most of all, and the thing that has most influenced me are the small vignettes you come across, which are constantly refreshed through the seasons. Here’s a bit of spring:

and here is one of the baskets which reminded me just what a simple container offers. (no, you don’t need half a dozen different plants shouting at each other, just the pleasing frame that the container provides.)

There will always be delightful detail:

And here’s some random pleasures:

And here are the makers. Applause, please.

John and Sue Wright seated in the Gazebo
Hill House, Glascoed, Monmouthshire, Wales.