Drawing detailed examples from some of the finest gardens in the world, the author shows how to lay out and plant a wide range of garden styles from the formal and patterned to the wild and natural. Using gardens as diverse as the Jekyll-inspired planting of white foxgloves in the wild garden at Knightshayes, Devon, and the water gardens at Longstock, Hampshire, Penelope Hobhouse shows how to lay out and plant formal, patterned, natural and flower gardens. Themes, such as relating a garden to its setting, garden structure and how to create a small garden are balanced by in-depth portraits of more than 20 gardens, including famous gardens, such as Great Dixter, Villandry and Guisti. The author also wrote Colour in your Garden, Private Gardens of England, The National Trust: A Book of Gardening, Painted Gardens, Borders and The Country Gardener. She looks after the National Trust Garden at Tintinhull House in Somerset and lectures widely in Britain, Europe and the USA.