Copyright Elizabeth Buckley 2010
| North Garden | South Garden | 17. Triangle |
| 1. Chris’s Seat | 9. Magnolia Walk | 18. Pool Garden |
| 2. Charles’ Garden = Veg Plot | 10. Charles’ Wood | 19. Hedge Garden |
| 3. Felicia Border & Leymus Bed | 11. ‘That Population’ Gate | 20. Hosta Walk |
| 4. Cotoneaster Walk | 12. Wild Garden | 21. Ruin |
| 5. Meadow | 13. Windfall Garden | 22. Pond |
| 6. Front Garden | 14. Hazel Coppice | 23. New Garden |
| 7. Orchard | 15. Conservatory | 24. Cornfield Garden |
| 8. Orchard Border | 16. Crescent Border | 25. Grasses Parterre |
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My favourite NGS gardens include the Charles Jenks Garden of Cosmic Speculation and the Yew Wave garden at Veddw House in Wales.
Jarman, Jencks, Finlay, Strong/Oman at The Laskett and Wareham/Hawes at Veddw – all of these have been made by individuals who have come to gardens or landscape relatively late in life via other artistic disciplines or interests.
Most of our best-known, most-visited gardens are merely pretty, or, worse, picturesque. The efforts of gardeners such as Sara Maitland and Anne Wareham to raise our consciousness beyond merely oohing and aahing about dazzling mixed borders or crediting splashing water with promoting relaxation have so far had little effect.
When, at Veddw in Monmouthshire, Wareham replants the lines of vanished hedgerows with box and fills the enclosed spaces with grasses and hardy perennials, she is linking the land-use of the past with the aesthetic of the lordly parterre. By giving expression to contemporary sensibility about conservation, she invites intellectual engagement.
Gardening can be – should be – conceptual, which is simply a way of saying that gardens should have ideas in them and the ideas should be perceptible.