James was recently appointed head gardener at Benton End, previously home to artist and plantsman Cedric Morris, which is now being carefully revitalised under the auspices of the Garden Museum. Though he worked at Great Dixter for a time before this and our paths must have crossed, in true garden-geek style, it was an instagram post about Malus Huphensis (a particularly beautiful crab apple tree) that brought me to the door of the barn-cottage he shares with his wife Coralie (deputy head gardener at Great Dixter). They gifted me one crab apple, and two near-black tree peonies which they had raised from seed collected from plants in Dixter’s sunken garden that I’d admired and secretly coveted for the past ten years. This ranks as one of the best gifts I received this year (the tree has been planted in our wildflower meadow and I am now earnestly trying not to kill the peonies until they can be planted in our new garden next year). Thanks again for those James, and for this great list...



The House of a Lifetime, Ngoc Minh Ngo & Umberto Pasti, £34