Winter gardens

Inspired by a lone topiary bird, the gift of a pruning saw and a formative fortnight spent at Sissinghurst, Sarah Vermont has transformed her Essex garden and a neighbouring orchard into a magnificent spectacle, filled with enchanting shapes that come to life at this time of year.

An inspiring sense of complete peace pervades the garden of Le Prieuré de Vauboin, an old priory in Sarthe, in western France, following its medieval-inspired conversion into a green sanctuary defined by formal parterres and a spectacular array of box topiary

In this extract from their book Winter Gardens, Clare Foster and the photographer Andrew Montgomery explore the gardens at Mapperton in Dorset, where the interplay of architecture and formal topiary is brought into relief by colder weather

From mushrooms to cinnamon buns and mitres to Toto the dog, the topiary that populates Louise and Fergus Dowding’s Somerset garden is an ever-changing extravaganza of shapes and characters, which look especially enchanting covered in winter’s frosts

In an extract from Clare Foster's latest book, ‘Winter Gardens’, a collaboration with the photographer Andrew Montgomery, she explores the wonderful topiary garden of a Hampshire manor house

Feeling the chill? It's always summer in botanic greenhouses and conservatories. Here are our favourites to visit this winter.

Gardener Dan Pearson details the tasks that await him on his Somerset smallholding in the colder winter months – from building lodgings for his gunnera to furthering the ribbon of snowdrops on the lane verges that run alongside his land.

At Plas Brondanw in Snowdonia, the former house of the architect Clough Williams-Ellis, the playful statuary and elaborate topiary of the Italianate garden stand out in stark relief in winter

Continuing her series on designers' gardens, this month Clare Foster visits the Dutch garden of Piet Oudolf, the hub of his experimentation with plants for more than 30 years

In the second part of our series, Clare Foster meets nurseryman Chris Lane, whose passion for witch hazels was ignited by the brilliant colour and fragrance that their flowers offer in an otherwise dormant garden.

At Kalmthout Arboretum in Belgium, a renowned witch hazel collection rediscovered in the Fifties offers a spectacular display of colour and uplifting scent to brighten the darkest days of winter

In early spring, hundreds of varieties of snowdrops carpet the grounds at Thenford House in Northamptonshire, where Michael and Anne Heseltine have spent over 40 years establishing the garden and arboretum

From National Trust gardens in Cambridgeshire to an Italian garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, we've selected five of the most beautiful gardens to visit in winter

At the Laskett in Herefordshire, where garden designer Sir Roy Strong has spent decades creating a distinctive and very personal space