Country Gardens & Estates - Jo Thompson Landscape & Garden Design

A Norfolk Rectory

Jo Thompson — Sat, 17 May 2025 15:00:50 +0000

Country garden, Norfolk

A garden for a writer

This garden belongs to a writer for whom the garden is a haven, both a writer’s retreat and a source of inspiration. Beds of etheral prennials sit at intervals around a york stone terrace, with gaps in the planting allowing easy and comfortable access to the meadows beyond. The house is anchored to its location by a mix of native and non-native perennials, together with roses, hydrangeas and camellias. Wildflower meadows designed for sun and designed for shade are bejewelled with bulbs which flower through the year, appearing through this garden. As ever, biodiversity was a central consideration to this gardenfull of history and romance.

Photography by Rachel Warne

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Spa Garden, Kent

admin — Fri, 16 May 2025 13:00:28 +0000

Spa Garden, Kent

Country elegance

This oak-framed swimming pool building and and spa area were designed and constructed to fulfil strict planning regulations on a Grade I listed house in an Area of Natural Beauty, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

A previously-empty area has been transformed into a spa and entertaining area, all wrapping round a new indoor swimming pool. Contemporary elements combined with classical details link the garden to the landscape beyond. Reclaimed York flagstones form a terrace large enough to hold a hundred people for parties. This large area is broken up with asymetrically-laid buxus and ilex crenata topiary. Box-pleached Carpinus betulus break the view of the swimming pool and gym roofs from the main house.

The steps leading down to this area are set between two large beds, filled with green and white planting: predominantly Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ , Rosa rugosa alba and Artemisia ‘ Lambrook Mist’. Foliage is of importance here: amongst the foliage planting here are Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’, Pittosporum tobira, Fatsia japonica and Viburnum cinnamomifolium.

Photography by Rachel Warne

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Sussex Wilding

admin — Tue, 13 May 2025 19:10:34 +0000

Sussex Wilding

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Country Barn

admin — Sun, 11 May 2025 18:20:53 +0000

Country Barn, Kent

A garden in Kent that ties together house and landscape.

A long-term project to settle-into the landscape this 15th-century black-timbered barn, which had only stood on the land since the 1990s.

The brief was to strike a balance between a country garden that reflected the simple, timbered exterior of the barn and something that was modern and spoke to the light and airy contemporary interior. It was also important to create views from the barn, so that, from indoors, the house feels connected to its surroundings.

An extended terrace was created outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in the dining hall with a rectangular reflecting pool surrounded by a cloister of hornbeam.

It is also a garden that is planted for wildlife and surrounded by newly established woodland. A limestone terrace provides space for table, chairs and loungers, surrounding by lawn. A walled garden on the boundary gives height, as well as shelter from the wind and to support roses, clematis, vines and wisteria.

To link the house and terrace with the walled garden, a series of low, broken hedges delineates a small, semi-formal, rectangular flower garden of jewelled colours (roses, peonies, Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’), from which a mown path leads through a wildflower meadow to the walled garden. Roses and soft herbaceous perennials billow over the gravel with grasses and euphorbias, giving something to catch the eye in winter.

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Naturalistic Garden, Kent

admin — Sat, 10 May 2025 12:58:08 +0000

Naturalistic Garden, Kent

A garden bringing nature to the doorstep.

Nestled in the Weald of Kent, amongst majestic oak and beech woodland, this large country garden draws on its extraordinary landscape to seamlessly link the house with the land.

With space required for entertaining and relaxation, this garden uses nature-inspired planting to sensitively unify and integrate an outdoor kitchen and new swimming pool into historic farmland. Planting anchors and soften these important features into the natural landscape – from many angles they are screened completely.

Expansive lawns have been sensitively framed and divided; new vistas open through woodland onto grassy plains; mounds of grasses and rich, textural shrub planting weave new routes through the garden. Perennial borders packed with eupatorium, fennel, persicaria, verbena are alive with pollinators. Rich woodland, perennial and meadow habitats support local wildlife.

Our aspiration has been to leave a feeling that we have worked with what surrounds the house.

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Country Garden, Sussex

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 12:00:47 +0000

Country Garden, Sussex

Contemporary meets traditional

Country garden designed in conjunction with William Deakins, RIBA.

The planting surrounding this 16th Century house was designed to link the house with the landscape. A perennial planting of grasses and herbaceous plants was designed to sit in harmony with the house’s surroundings, softening the simple, clear lines of the garden layout. Views from the house are just as important as views from the garden: the home now is nestled within a relaxed palette of plants. In collaboration with William Deakins RIBA.

Photography by Will Scott

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Country Estate, Sussex

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 11:00:25 +0000

Country Estate, Sussex

A gentle intervention

This design for the gardens and surrounding landscape of a Grade 1 Listed Georgian house centres on a respect for the surrounding landscape and the creation of a garden which provides the main view from the house, as well as providing an accessible garden for a young family.

A formal garden of Taxus baccata and Ilex crenata topiary alongside tumbling roses around an existing ornamental pond leads through tall yew columns to a slate-lined swimming pool and outside kitchen and dining area. A kitchen garden provides culinary herbs and cut flowers for the house. The planting design incorporated the use of both shrubs and perennials to create a traditional atmosphere with a touch of the contemporary.

Borders around the house have a relaxed feel, linking the house with the surrounding gardens in an effectively informal way. Climbing and rambling roses alongside scented jasmine clothe the walls of the house.

Photography by Rachel Warne

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Riverside Retreat

admin — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 18:52:04 +0000

Riverside Retreat

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Sussex Countryside

admin — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 18:42:42 +0000

Sussex Countryside

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Country House, East Sussex

admin — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 11:38:43 +0000

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE Country House, East Sussex, Garden Design by Jo Thompson

Creating a beautiful 2-acre garden in the heart of Sussex

A historic country house and country garden in the heart of Sussex. This 2 acre family garden mixes traditional and classic elements with a slightly wild, natural appearance. Long stretches of romantic planting in gentle colours weave through the garden, which at the same time conceals some areas whilst opening up into others.

The house looks out onto twin herbaceous borders which are planted with roses, perennials, shrubs and bulbs to provide structure, colour and interest throughout the year. Ancient trees are celebrated as viewpoints and as places to sit. Vegetable beds, a cut flower garden, swimming pool and croquet lawn reveal themselves along the journey through the garden.

The owners had never gardened before, and care was taken to ensure that the plantings were manageable and easy to understand in terms of maintenance.

Photography by Jason Ingram

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