Better known for the Great British Bake-Off, but the snowdrops came first: five acres under the beeches, a reputed 73 cultivars, and a queue for the car park that made the pub a mile away look very appealing

The first National Trust property I have visited where the garden, not the house, is the point', Ludwig Messel’s Grade II listed garden, a ruin kept as a gothic folly, and a rock garden with more attitide than most.

Having done Villandry, Chaumont and Chenonceau, I went looking for a hidden gem on the other Loir. Not quite hidden, but the unpublicised organic kitchen garden was worth the pidgin French.

Remember the rewilded beaver garden? It went to a mental health chaity in Buckinghamshire. Where Chelsea’s best show gardens end up, and who finds £250,000 a garden once Project Giving Back stops after 2026?

It is very easy to visit Richmond Park regularly and miss this altogether. Deer kept out, azaleas kept in: the National Collection of Wilson 50 Kurume azaleas, at its loudest in late April.

Twelve months, twelve photographs: a brutal January on Wimbledon Common, Wakehurst in February, the ancient laurel forest in Madeira, Sarah Price at Chelsea, and the year I finally learned to design gardens in 3D.

The only reasonably sensible list for gardeners: no cashmere pyjamas, no pink suede gauntlets. Felco, Showa, Silky Fox, a day out with lunch, and one bespoke cedar greenhouse for the ambitious.

Smaller and far easier to walk than Wisley, and a corrective to my southern view of gardening up north. Salvias Amistad, Black and Blue, and Hotlips all thriving in North Yorkshire.

I did not expect to like it. 14,000 perennials, 120 metres of beech hedging and 60,000 bulbs later, it is the best argument I know for planting a garden that peaks in autumn.

Photographs of Wimbledon Common in autumn

Review and photographs of Mottisfont NT Winter Garden design