CELESTIAL SPRING

Shimmering with new-season light, designer Angel Collins’ Warwickshire garden is a little slice of blossom-filled heaven

JACKY HOBBS

For Angel Collins, moving from the only home she had ever known was tempered by the prospect of creating a romantic new garden to envelop the old stone vicarage she and her wine-merchant husband, Ben, found in a rural Warwickshire village. Angel’s ability to marry house and site, especially in large country gardens, shines through her own garden’s design. ‘The elevated site has the potential for incredible countryside views and, in the evening, as the sun dips, it is dramatically backlit,’ says Angel.

The overarching premise of her design was to exploit these natural qualities. The perimeter hornbeam hedge, which barricaded the view, was all but removed, a lowered corner-piece retained to define the incoming Sunset Garden, which makes the most of the glorious evening light.

The designer’s bold planting of eight ornamental spring-flowering cherries, Prunus ‘Accolade’, is enthralling. Crowded with pink blossom, these enchanting trees float above four half-moon beds, which pivot around a central mirror-glass obelisk designed by David Harber – one of the few things that travelled with Angel from her previous garden.