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Pettifers: The breathtaking Oxfordshire garden born from the impeccable instincts of Gina Price

It is a lovely irony that one of the most celebrated gardens made in the past two decades was designed by someone who had never created a garden before. The resulting originality explains why Pettifers, the Oxfordshire garden created by Gina Price, is such a treat, drawing visitors from far and wide.

No detailed plans were drawn up. Mrs Price simply followed her instincts and, with a natural eye for what works and what doesn’t, looked at what she had in front of her. The vista included walls of warm ironstone — more orange than the familiar buff Cotswold limestone — and an open view over small, hedged fields that sloped gently uphill towards a softly undulating tree line.

Despite the wonderful aspect, however, this isn’t a particularly easy spot on which to arrange a garden, due to the fact that it sits on the edge of a village where other houses encroach and plots have had to be carved out, in this case creating a dominant rectangular shape.

Camassia ‘Electra’ and Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ provide a colourful warm-up act for the herbaceous perennials. Pettifers, Oxfordshire. ©Clive Nichols Garden Pictures

(Image credit: Clive Nichols Garden Pictures)

The moment one…