Best plants for a meadow<\/a><\/li>

Discover a natural managed meadow<\/a><\/li>

Expert tips for designing a meadow<\/a><\/li>

The best hardy orchids to grow in your garden<\/a><\/li><\/ul>
Surrounding the house was a huge thuja hedge <\/a>that eclipsed the hilltop view on all sides. This had to go. A year later, in 1999, I enlisted the help of garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith<\/a>. My brief was to bring all the views into the garden rather than exclude them, or merely glimpse vistas from a series of curated rooms. Thus, it has become a garden that is all about the landscape.<\/p>
The distant house commands views over the deep Herefordshire valley of meadow, woodland and water, shaped by generations of farmers and landowners. All appear part of the same landscape, but it wasn\u2019t always this way. Peter worked with digger drivers (taking a detour from their work on the M50) to reshape contours, moving half a hillside to gently slope the land down to the lake, opening new sight lines between house and water. \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure>
The meadow, like the garden, is 24 years old, and now covers 22 acres in three contiguous sections. For many years it was a fraction of that area, a modest foreground to the hilltop house. Now the meadow extends south, gently sloping<\/a> down to the lakeside and then upwards to a hanging wood \u2013 Haile\u2019s Wood \u2013 which is our boundary, and the first full stop in a crumpled patchwork of undulating pinks and greensthat runs towards Ross-on-Wye and the Forest of Dean.<\/p>
8 of Peter’s Orchids<\/strong><\/p>
$\"Anacamptis$ \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
$\"Ophrys$
Ophrys apifera (bee orchid) Pale-green or pink petals have a brown lip with yellow markings, resembling a bee. Flowers mid-spring or early summer. 30cm. RHS H6. \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
$\"Dactylorhiza$
Dactylorhiza fuchsii (common spotted orchid) A tall specimen with dense spikes of purple, pink or white flowers with darker markings in late spring. 60cm. RHS H5. \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
$\"Anacamptis$
Anacamptis pyramidalis (pyramidal orchid) Conical spikes of rich-pink flowers in midsummer. 60cm. RHS H5. \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
$\"Platanthera$
Platanthera chlorantha (greater butterfly orchid) Whitish flowers with a lovely evening scent. 60cm. RHS H6. \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
$\"Neottia$
Neottia ovata (common twayblade) An unshowy but robust orchid whose flower spikes can carry up to 100 yellow-green flowers. 50cm. \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
$\"Orchis$
Orchis purpurea (lady orchid) The dark-red upper petals of this stunning, unmistakable orchid form a hood over the white and dark-red lip. 80cm. \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
$\"Orchis$
Orchis mascula (early purple orchid) Light to dark-purple flowers appear in early spring. 40cm. RHS H5. \u00a9 Carole Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>