THE DETAILS

STYLE

Many half-hardy and tender plants in borders and containers; white garden; parterre and knot garden; shade house

SEASONS OF INTEREST Bursting with colour from the middle of summer to winter

SIZE Three acres

SOIL Well-drained alkaline, quite shallow in places

The gardens of some country houses are grand with a capital G, their sweeping lawns, silvery lakes and monumental avenues a world away from our modest domestic plots. Not so at the gardens of Bourton House near Moreton-in-marsh in the Cotswolds, which gather around its honey-coloured walls like a beautifully tailored suit. Three acres unfold in a sequence of garden rooms stitched together by a framework of yew hedges and stonework, each working perfectly on its own. There’s so much detail in the planting and design, so many gorgeously planted containers: numerous small sections could be lifted out and dropped into a back garden or a terrace with little adaptation. The way it builds to a fiery crescendo in late summer and early autumn, with exuberant plants from warmer climes that flower until the first frost, is something all gardeners can learn from.

Roelof and Cheryl Quintus bought Bourton House in 2010 from Richard and Monique Paice, who had developed the neglected garden over 25 years. Nowadays, this still relatively young plot, with its distinctive seasonal flourishes, is under the watchful eye of head gardener Jacky Rae. In September, the garden is a feast of colour, shape and texture. In a carnivalesque ‘border in pots’ along the orchard wall, familiar houseplants mingle with exotic-looking specimens, including graceful purple-flowered Tibouchina urvilleana, the glory

OPPOSITE, FROM TOP LEFT

Oxalis vulcanicola ‘Zinfandel’;

Cuphea cyanea BELOW LEFT A container featuring Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’, Lantana camara, plectranthus and purple phormium ABOVE Pots of tender perennials and annuals include

Canna ‘Durban’, purple-flowered

Tibouchina urvilleana, purple Heliotropium arborescens ‘Gatton Park’, Fuchsia corymbiflora and Polygala myrtifolia BELOW, FROM LEFT The Parterre is made of clipped box, yew and standard Portuguese laurels; Digitalis canariensis brings a hit of colour with reddish-orange flower spikes bush, and evergreen Polygala myrtifolia with magenta pea-like blooms and glaucous foliage. “Most things love a bit of sunshine,” Jacky says. “So we bring cacti, succulents and begonias outside for the summer. We harden them off before leaving them out overnight, as you would with bedding plants, and bring them in at the end of the season before it gets too cold.”

Jacky and her team – Gareth Griffith and Tom Benfield – integrate tender plants into borders, too. “Big succulents make wonderful focal points and their fleshy leaves reflect light like nothing else,” she says. Although using so many tender plants is labour intensive – taking a month to plant everything out in late May and June – she is adamant that it’s worth it: “Many gardens peak in early summer, but here things get better and better well into autumn. Visitors often see plants that they have never come across before and that’s really satisfying.”

While some tender plants go back under cover for winter, either lifted from the borders (cannas and dahlias) or carried inside in their pots (tibouchinas), most are renewed each year by taking cuttings in August and September. These include several varieties of plectranthus, grown for their bold, textured foliage, including silvery Plectranthus argentatus. “I love it wafting around the base of purple-flowering salvias such as ‘Amistad’ and ‘Phyllis’ Fancy’,” Jacky says.

Trailing Plectranthus ciliatus is a smaller variety with puckered foliage and purple stems, perfect for containers and hanging baskets. Jacky uses it in large terracotta pots with purple-leaved phormiums, cannas and Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’, lifted with bright-yellow

ABOVE The Shade House is planted with shade-loving plants such as ferns, podophyllums and begonias BELOW An effective display of pots with foliage plants including hostas, heucheras and largeleaved Begonia gehrtii OPPOSITE Along the orchard wall, Jacky has created a border with terracotta pots of cacti and succulents

Lantana camara. “Keep container planting simple. Choose a couple of colours and use one bold plant that catches the eye to work around,” she advises.

Jacky uses half-hardy annuals, such as tobacco plants, morning glories and clary sage, sown from seed under cover and planted out when risk of frost is past. Nicotiana affinis ‘Alba’ is slotted into the White Garden among eryngiums and Californian tree poppies; and Argyranthemum ‘Starlight’, which bears double white daisies over silvery foliage, flowers all season in pots at each corner of the raised pond. “Deadhead regularly to keep them flowering and tidy. In pots, we mix slow-release fertiliser with compost and use split canes to stake plants against the wind.” During summer and autumn, the green parts of the garden act like sorbet between courses, cleansing the palate in the middle of intense bursts of colour. Box swirls and loops its way around standard Portuguese laurels and a wrought-iron arbour in the parterre, while the knot garden is a rectilinear pattern of box in low interlocking hedges punctuated by variegated pyramids. An unusual shade house built of wooden slats shows off delicate and tender woodlanders such as asarums and podophyllums. “Mrs Paice took a photo of a shade house in Canada and had one made so we could grow plants that don’t do well elsewhere,” Jacky explains.

In the Warm Border, hardy perennial heleniums and crocosmias are interspersed with fleshy succulents including the graceful swan’s neck agave, Agave attenuata, and Dahlia ‘Moonfire’ with yellow and red flowers over smoky purple foliage. “We drop dahlias or argyranthemums into gaps in borders when earlier plants have died down – they flower generously for so long, even two or three make an impact.” At the front of the border, spilling onto the path, unusual little Oxalis vulcanicola ‘Zinfandel’ produces mounds of deep purple foliage sprinkled with yellow flowers.

Whether you give begonias an airing for the summer, grow a few floriferous and easy half-hardy annuals or invest in an elegant showstopper like a tibouchina, half-hardy and tender plants will lend your garden colour, scent and glamour well into autumn. Get along to Bourton House if you can and be inspired.