Sum of the manse

For this walled garden on the edge of the Cairngorms, designer Jonathan Snow has created a sloping parterre filled with flowers and food

- ANNIE GATTI

When Jonathan Snow was commissioned to design the garden of a former Scottish manse on the edge of the Highlands, he discovered that the owners wanted two very different approaches: simple and unadorned in front of the house, and full and romantic at the back.

The solution for the front, which has open views across sloping fields and forestry plantation to low hills on the horizon, was clipped yew balls that grounded the white house, calming grass areas and gravel paths.

The back garden slopes up a grassy hill to a striking three-metre-high wall, which arcs in a semi-circle, sheltering the garden and forming its northern boundary. “The owners wanted to grow vegetables and cut flowers. They wanted reasons to walk round the garden, with places to sit, and they wanted the planting to be appropriate to its location,” explains Jonathan. A visit with his clients to the Arts and Crafts garden at Crathes Castle established that borders edged with clipped evergreen hedging and filled with traditional herbaceous planting would work well at the manse.

The back garden is dominated by a tennis court, and hidden from the house behind an existing double line of clipped beech hedging. To create journeys through the space, Jonathan designed a series of planted walks around the tennis court. A curved path that led from the entrance of the back garden directly to the tennis court has been transformed into a delightful walk through an orchard of apple and filbert trees, which is spangled with narcissus, fritillaries and camassias in spring.