This is a photo of a damaged pine tree in the pinetum at Chatsworth. It looks like it has suffered some sort of trauma in a storm and the top of it has split off. It seems to be flourishing again, I don’t know what it looked like before it was maimed but to me it looks beautiful now. It might sound daft but I think that that tree could be a lesson to us all!

I have a bit of a penchant for box hedging so this wee bit of the garden appealed to me even although this is a very simple design. As you can see there’s a sculpture there too. There are quite a lot of modern art works dotted around the park. At least the Devonshires are still supporting living artists, just as their ancestors did.

Years ago I bought a few box plants for my own garden and every time I trim them I take loads of cuttings so now I have them all around the edges of my garden in various sizes. I intend to make a Celtic knot garden with them in my new garden when we move. Hopefully it’ll be a lot more intricate than the Chatsworth design. I first saw that sort of planting years ago in Ludwigsburg, Germany in ‘Mad’ King Ludwig’s garden. It looks stunning there.