There is a place, where one glorious garden space after another can be found hidden behind tall foliage covered walls. The garden is the sum of many parts, each one offering a picture-perfect scene: a sunken pool with a cherub here, an ancient cold bath over there, and across the way, beyond an old sundial, old orchard trees grow, and bees float poetically above rich meadow grass.

At its heart and wrapped all around an evocative Tudor house this garden’s presence is delivered, unconditionally, through first-rate cultivation. Traditional flower borders grow deep and delicious, terraces are packed with perennials and tender exotics, and golden grasses gently

caress passers-by. Neatly edged carpet-like lawns offer calm contrast to busy borders, and climbers have each been artistically trained for best effect. Hedges are clipped tightly, fine gravel paths keep allcomers to the straight and narrow, and carefully selected wildflowers grow between pebbles in the courtyard. If any place could ever be considered picture-perfect, it is here.

Just across the roadway through the walled garden’s heavy timbered gate, tall structures lift eyes up to pleached and espaliered trees and a shady summer tunnel bearing colourful oddly shaped fruits. Customarily placed in the centre, a circular dipping pool offers a place to stop and reflect on your world outside, or this garden’s active past: imaginary cans being plunged beneath the surface and carried off to irrigate produce, barrows of muck being double dug into knee deep trenches by a puffing gardener, row upon row of well-groomed leafy greens, and show worthy fruits hanging from straight stems trained under the roof of a lean-to glasshouse. This walled garden lives now, as it did then.

Merging seamlessly with the leafy landscape beyond, long parkland paths lead through old oaked avenues, beside open brooks, and pasture. After travelling around pools and perching awhile to watch the waterfowl, wooded walks offer themselves up, their paths wending between tall trees to create adventure and exploration for young ones. Besides the woods, dotted across countless mind-wandering green acres and sheltering the sheep, numerous charismatic trees grow in support of the place’s name. Some trees are super healthy whilst some, whittled by nature’s hand, are peaceably withdrawing from their growing days, regressing little by little into twisted and fascinating forms as nature dictates.

Not last and never the least is a large rectangular topiary garden, a time travelling evergreen relic equalled in character by precious few places across the land. Enclosed by long cloud-like hedges of box along each stretched side, its entrance features a raised brick walkway that holds bee-bole clues to this garden’s fruitier former self. To the other end yet another terrace rises, this time hedged and grassed and leading through a gate to a path that spirals up a viewing mount, to a seat beneath a master yew. This part of the place with its clipped wavy hedges, close shaven lawn and topiary trees, is an incredibly soothing place to spend time, and worthy of visiting itself.

The garden in Warwickshire I describe above is a place I’ve come to know well, and is known as Packwood. Should its name or fame be unfamiliar to you but my words awaken interest, I’d encourage you not to waste a moment more, and to plan your pilgrimage. Packwood’s groomed pathways anticipate your tread, its luxurious borders look forward to catching your attention and its summertime presence awaits yours. Make that visit and as its people say, you’ll be sure to discover ‘a house to dream of, and a garden to dream in’.

A few words to describe an exquisite horticultural contribution to the world, cared for by skilled gardeners of The National Trust.

By Gary Webb.