Wonderlands: Intimate Gardens of Britain’s Top Designers
In her new book, Wonderlands: British Garden Designers at Home, Clare Coulson steps inside the personal spaces of the UK’s top garden designers — untamed, intuitive and entirely their own.
What happens when the country’s most accomplished garden designers are given complete creative freedom?
When there are no clients to please, no deadlines to meet and no budgets to balance? In Wonderlands, Clare Coulson sets out to answer just that — inviting readers through the garden gates of 18 of Britain’s most influential designers to see how they shape their own private spaces.
It’s a captivating premise, not least because these gardens are rarely seen. Far from the polished perfection of show gardens or client commissions, these are deeply personal spaces — intimate, expressive and ever-evolving. Coulson is a thoughtful and perceptive guide, unpicking the design philosophies and emotional connections behind each garden, whether it’s a sprawling estate in the Scottish Borders or a postage-stamp plot in suburban London.
What unites these gardens is not a shared style or planting palette, but rather a quiet confidence. A willingness to let go, to experiment, to let the garden grow into itself. Time is the invisible thread running through every story. Without the pressure of a professional brief, these gardens are allowed to unfold slowly. Meadows are left to thicken and roam, roses scramble across timeworn walls and self-sown seedlings are welcomed rather than weeded out.
Photographer Eva Nemeth captures it all with her signature sensitivity to light and texture. Her images feel almost painterly, revealing meadows humming with life, paths dappled with shadow and plantings soft with the fuzz of high summer. There’s a particular kind of magic here: the alchemy of experience, instinct and deep horticultural knowledge made tangible. Each space feels entirely its own, yet all are united by a generosity of spirit — a sense of the garden as a place to be lived in, not just looked at.
Wonderlands is both inspiring and reassuring. It reminds us that the best gardens aren’t made in haste. Rather, they are coaxed into being, season by season, shaped by the slow rhythm of time and the idiosyncrasies of those who tend them. It is a beautiful, thoughtful book for anyone who believes gardening is as much about feeling as it is about form.
Wonderlands
British Garden Designers at Home
Published by Hardie Grant books.
Available online at amazon.co.za
Credits
This article was originally published in the House & Garden SA November 2025 Issue
Text by Heidi Bertish
Images by Eva Nemeth