Blithwold Display Gardens

Certainly, my favorite part of the Blithwold Estate's grounds were the Display Gardens.  These are tucked behind an original 1901 Lord and Burnham greenhouse, that is still being used to propagate the collections today.  The smaller structure below would typically house gardening tools, though equally important, it anchors the garden beds and also provides a structure upon which a pergola can be set.  The gardens were once populated with only vegetables - it was a proper potager - but today it is used to herald the worthiness of various herbaceous plants. 

 

Rare vines such as Nepenthes grow on the pergola with shade-loving ferns (Asplenium, for instance) crowd the stone path. 

Outside the pergola, tables of orange, geranium and Euphorbia milii are lightly touched by the cascading grape vines.

Here's a shot of the display gardens.  It's basically a reverse-view of the first photo in this post.  I think what makes a garden like this a success is not over-planning it.  As a designer, I probably shouldn't admit that, but the joy of a garden like this derives from its unbridled profusion of colors, textures and sizes.  After seeing so many variations of these types of gardens, I think I've become a bit fine-tuned to spot out the ones that are too carefully constructed.  Look at the heights alone: the beds below are lop-sided.  If a designer was obsessively selecting plants, they'd mirror heights, or would have some kind of alternating rhythm (tall-medium-short-tall-medium-short).  Instead, this looks like the person who picked out the species was too excited about the lovely selection to worry about 'coloring in the lines.'