Scampston Walled Garden

Scampston Walled Garden is one of the best places in England to see the work of the Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, whose naturalistic perennial planting has shaped modern garden design. His garden, opened in 2004, fills the historic walled garden of Scampston Hall, so you get bold, modern planting held inside old brick walls. It is a garden that gardeners come back to again and again for ideas.

Inside the walls the garden is divided into a series of distinct areas, each with its own mood, from tightly clipped hedges to open drifts of perennials and grasses. The Perennial Meadow is the part most closely linked with Oudolf's style, with plants chosen as much for their shape, seed heads and late-season look as for their flowers. A raised mound gives a view over the whole layout, which helps to make sense of the design.

Beyond the walled garden lies the serpentine park, laid out first by Charles Bridgeman and later by Capability Brown in 1772, with a sheet of water closed by a Palladian bridge and pavilion built around 1775. Scampston Hall itself, a Regency remodelling of a late 17th-century house, is open by guided tour. For home gardeners, the takeaway is how to plant in drifts and repeats, and how grasses and perennials can carry a border well into autumn and winter.