Bruton, 23 May 2026 · Garden design · Build · Aftercare A small studio · books open Oct 2026

Gardens that are designed slowly, built carefully, and looked after for decades.

A six-person studio of garden architects based in Bruton, Somerset, working on residential gardens, vineyards and small estates across the south-west since 2009.

Tell us about your garden Recent work

17 years, six designers BALI registered practice RHS Gold, Hampton 2023

A country garden path through soft perennial planting in late spring, with limestone walls and topiary in the distance. — **The walled garden, Stourhead Lodge**Designed across the winter of 2023, built in two visits, and planted out the following October — photographed last Wednesday by Andrew Montgomery for *House & Garden.*

The studio's current planting palette Spring 2026 · Stourhead Lodge

Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster'

Salvia 'Caradonna'

Sanguisorba 'Tanna'

Stipa tenuissima

Eryngium agavifolium

Verbena bonariensis

Achillea 'Terracotta'

Astrantia 'Roma'

Gardens a yearA small studio on purpose

Designers & landscapersRHS- & Inchbald-trained

2009

FoundedBy Inès Marston, after 11 years at Tom Stuart-Smith

£60k+

Typical projectDesign through to planting, two seasons

A note on the studio

Verdure is a small practice, on purpose.

The studio was founded by Inès Marston in 2009, after eleven years at Tom Stuart-Smith Ltd. The brief on day one was simple: a maximum of twelve gardens a season, designed and built by the people who would look after them. We have stuck to it.

Seventeen years on we are six — three designers, two landscapers, and an apprentice who came to us from the Inchbald in 2024. We work mostly within an hour of Bruton, occasionally further afield, and very occasionally on smaller estates and vineyards where a longer programme suits both of us.

Every garden begins with a long walk and a notebook. The question we ask first is always the same: what does this place want to feel like, at four in the afternoon, on a Wednesday in November?

— Inès Marston, studio director

Three of this year's gardens

Designed, built, and photographed last month.

A small selection of the gardens we've finished in the last twelve months. Many more in the studio archive, available on request after a first conversation.

A formal walled garden with soft perennial planting and a limestone path leading toward a stone bench.

Stourhead Lodge, Wiltshire

A walled garden of soft repetition, on five acres of old kitchen ground.

Owned by the same family since the 1970s, the walled garden had been left to its own devices for thirty years. We kept what mattered (a magnolia, a 1936 pleached lime walk, two of the original 1842 pear espaliers) and rebuilt around them — a perennial four-bed scheme, a kitchen border under the south wall, and a long limestone path that finally connects the house to the garden gate.

Programme: 14 months
Built by: Verdure landscape team
Plants: 184 species · 7 nurseries
Photographer: Andrew Montgomery

A long perennial border in late summer, with cardoons, sanguisorba and grasses backlit by afternoon sun.

The Old Rectory, near Bruton

Restoring a 1920s rectory border, without rebuilding it.

The clients had inherited a garden that had been "improved" three times since the 1980s. The job was to undo as much as possible. We edited rather than redesigned — lifting and dividing six of the original perennials, removing the modern paving, and replanting the long border in the studio's prairie-influenced way, but with a softer, more English palette.

Programme: 9 months
Original plants kept: 6 species, >800 plants
New plants: 74 species
Photographer: Andrew Montgomery

A grass walk between deep mixed planting borders in a country garden in golden afternoon light.

Westcombe Vineyard, Somerset

A vineyard garden, designed to disappear into the hillside.

An unusual commission: the vineyard owners wanted a garden around their new tasting building, but one that wouldn't compete with the vines for attention. We worked in a deliberately quiet palette — three grasses, four perennials, two shrubs, and a long calamintha edge that catches every breeze. Most of the planting happened on three weekends across October and November.

Programme: 7 months
Site: 0.6 acres around tasting building
Palette: 9 species · deliberately spare
Built with: The vineyard team, in part

The growing year

How a garden actually happens with us.

A new garden usually takes us through one full year. Design across the winter, hard-landscape in spring and summer, planting in autumn. Below is what that looks like, by season.

Late autumnOctober–December

The first walk & the first measure

Two hours on site with you, in the worst light of the year. We look at structure, sightlines, drainage, soil, and the trees that will be bare. The garden has to work in November as well as it does in June — that's why we start now.

WinterJanuary–February

Design, on paper, by candlelight

Master plan, hard-landscape details, planting plans, lighting. Two formal presentations, plus as many tea-break revisions as it takes. We send the final package as a printed folder, not a PDF.

SpringMarch–May

Hard-landscape, by our own team

Paths, walls, steps, pools, terraces. We build with our own people — no day-rate strangers — and we run the site as a single programme, never daisy-chained between three subcontractors. Most builds run between five and ten weeks.

SummerJune–September

The settling-in period

The beds are prepared, the irrigation is in, the structural plants are placed. We wait. Some gardens want to be planted into a slightly settled ground rather than fresh soil; an extra eight weeks here pays back for the next decade.

AutumnOctober–November

Planting, the long day

Perennials in October, when the ground is still warm and the rain is dependable. Trees and hedging in late November, when everything is properly dormant. We plant by hand, all six of us on site at once, with a small playlist and a thermos of coffee.

Year two onwardsAnnual contract

The first four visits

For clients who'd like us back, a four-visit-a-year care plan, run by the same designer who drew the garden. Quiet involvement; never a parade of vans. Gardens get better year on year, or we haven't done our job.

A short list

Twelve plants we keep coming back to.

Not the most adventurous list — but each one earns its place across the seasons, in our particular bit of the country, on our particular soils.

Calamagrostis × acutifloraKarl Foerster

Apr → Feb

Salvia 'Caradonna'For the long flower stem

May → Oct

Sanguisorba officinalisBurnet, for the back

Jul → Sep

Stipa tenuissimaMexican feather grass

May → Dec

Eryngium agavifoliumArchitectural mid-summer

Jul → Aug

Verbena bonariensisTall lilac, self-seeder

Jun → Oct

Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant'For the front

May → Sep

Hakonechloa macraFor shade & edges

May → Nov

Persicaria amplexicaulisLate, long, generous

Jul → Oct

Astrantia 'Roma'Refined cottage plant

May → Sep

Cynara cardunculusThe cardoon, for drama

Jun → Aug

Anemone × hybridaFor the September gap

Aug → Oct

From the clients

"The first garden we've ever actually used."

A few of our clients have been kind enough to write. We've left out the embarrassing ones, but we'll forward those too.

"They sat in the garden for hours before they drew anything. The plan that came out felt as though it had always been there. Fourteen months on, it's the first garden we've ever actually used."

Annabel & James CrawfordStourhead Lodge — walled garden, 2025

"We had inherited a complicated garden, full of decisions made by previous owners. Inès edited rather than starting again. She kept the magnolia we love, and quietly disappeared the rest."

Penny & Marcus WellsThe Old Rectory, Bruton — restoration, 2024

"Three years on, the garden looks better than it did the week we handed it over. They come back four times a year. It feels less like maintenance, and more like a friend visiting."

Ruth & Henry HadleyTetbury — design & care, 2022 onwards

"The vineyard garden took a year longer than I expected, and it was right that it did. The garden settles into a vineyard, rather than the other way round."

Tom & Ann FaulknerWestcombe Vineyard — vineyard garden, 2025

Where we work

An hour from Bruton, in any direction.

The studio is in Somerset. Most of our work is within an hour of it — Bath, Bruton, Frome, the south Cotswolds, Wiltshire, the Mendips. We will travel further for a long programme, but you should expect a slower start.

BrutonBA10
FromeBA11
WellsBA5
GlastonburyBA6
Castle CaryBA7
SherborneDT9
BathBA1, BA2
Bradford-on-AvonBA15
TrowbridgeBA14
TetburyGL8
CirencesterGL7
Bourton-on-the-WaterGL54
MalmesburySN16
DevizesSN10
MarlboroughSN8

Get in touch

Tell us about your garden.

We try to come back to every enquiry within three working days, with an honest answer about whether we're the right studio for the project. If we're not, we'll usually be able to suggest a friend who is.

Our books for spring 2027 builds open in early October. Autumn-planting designs typically take bookings through June. A handful of restoration and care commissions fit in throughout the year.