Gardening: Cuttings: Birthday time

MELONS may come and go, but the garden itself at Levens is 300 years old this year. It was laid out in 1694 by Guillaume Beaumont, who had worked for King James II. Some of the original topiary pieces from the time still survive, now grown to surreal proportions. It has become a wonderland of interlocking shapes, planes and colours, like no other garden I know.

To mark the tercentenary, a new Fountain Garden is being created within an enclosed quadrant of the old layout, to be opened in April. May it be as elegantly simple as the rest of Levens.