Inspired Spaces: Designing With Angel Collins

From formal hedgerows and elegant topiaries to soft ethereal flowerbeds, garden designer Angel Collins’ home garden is an exquisite expression of her design philosophy. Sweeping pathways and carefully framed vistas draw visitors effortlessly through a sequence of beautifully curated outdoor areas. Practicality is seamlessly interwoven with refinement, creating a landscape of timeless luxury and understated grandeur.

Angel spent her early years as a garden designer refining her craft in the gardens of friends. Over the course of a career that now spans 33 years, distinguished commissions throughout Britain have cultivated an exceptional depth of expertise across a diverse range of landscapes.

For Angel, designing a garden is special and personal. Her objective is always to create a space with sensitivity, to make sure it truly belongs to its surroundings. The initial walk around the space is vital; she will carefully consider the brief she has been given and assess any practical elements, whilst taking in any sparks of creativity and inspiration that help her envision the garden’s full potential.

Designing a garden is a complex process with a number of considerations, including sustainability, biodiversity, use of space, and incorporating sensual, textural and seasonal planting. For Angel, one of the most pleasurable components of designing a garden is curating a planting scheme that feels right for the house, both inside and out. Whether its creating contrast with unusual plant combinations or considering how the planting will shift with the seasons, Angel’s hope is that her design will become both a ‘comforting and comfortable’ living space.

Central to her design philosophy is a marriage between the architecture of the home and the landscape beyond. In her own garden, the formal-style hedging near the house transition into soft beds and looser planting as you move towards the end of the garden and the surrounding countryside beyond.

The practical reality of garden maintenance is considered as carefully as the aesthetic; Angel’s own garden is relaxed and low maintenance, with year-round interest. Vistas, viewpoints and the garden’s ‘aura’ are carefully considered and brought to life in the details. Final touches include sculptural elements: artworks, trees and areas of restrained monocolour planting. ‘I will endlessly walk through the garden in my mind and imagine it at different times of the year,’ she says, ‘the goal is to create wonderful moments to be enjoyed in every season.’

Nature sits at the heart of Angel’s work and has become more important to her now as the natural world feels increasingly precious. Ecology and biodiversity are woven thoughtfully into each project. Pollinator-friendly plants feature throughout the seasons, especially in the colder months when winter-flowers like Sarcococca and Viburnum can provide vital food for bees.

As well as accommodating a breadth of biodiversity, her designs inspire creativity through moments of reconnection with nature. ‘Garden birds are one of my favourite things in life. A garden isn’t really a garden without birdsong,’ says Angel.

Aspect and sunlight are living central elements in Angel’s work, and she selects plants for how they catch both morning and evening light. ‘Stipa gigantea, for example, quite literally sparkles in the evening sun,’ she explains. When it comes to garden lighting more widely, Angel favours restraint, selecting sculptural materials that bounce light around the garden in the daytime, like her David Harber Obelisk, and understated artificial light in the evening. These elegant soft pools of glowing light at night introduce a dramatic touch and is a great way to give the planting shape and structure at night.

For Angel, the underlying principle of all successful outdoor spaces is about cultivating the right feeling in a garden. As simple as this sounds, the challenge lies in orchestrating a series of subtle yet important synergies. ‘Sitting on a terrace surrounded by scented flowers, looking out at a beautiful garden, to me, is one of the glories of life,’ says Angel, ‘beautiful structure – whether it is from trees, topiary or art – with soft romantic planting form the foundations of my gardens, but it’s the emotion and energy that make the space feel alive: the taste of home-grown vegetables, greenhouses full of scented pelargoniums, seedlings full of promise, comfortable furniture, interesting cobbled paths.’

“Gardens have many dimensions and one of them is bringing art into the garden. On many levels I think that sculpture is a great addition and can really elevate a garden by introducing a personal touch. If you are lucky enough to have a David Harber sculpture, you will find it will bring a vivacity to your garden. You will visit it and watch in awe as the light hits the piece at different times of the day. It will become a friend.”

Angel Collins

When we asked Angel about the garden trends she sees emerging this year, she said, ‘we’ll see many more wildflower meadows, which is good, but it’s easier said than done. I have been planting perennials with ‘strong legs’ (for example Iris sibirica and Euphorbia pasteurii) into long grass, so once the spring bulbs are over, these plants will keep the season going. But creating meadows using shorter ornamental grasses such as Melica and Seslerias is becoming more popular along with interesting textural perennials and ferns.’ She goes onto explain that on the exotic end of scale, experimenting with Mediterranean shrubs and planting climate-resilient trees is going to become much more important as our gardens are challenged by wet winters and dry summers. ‘I have a lovely Pistacia lentus here in Warwickshire, which so far has survived. In London and Sussex, trees such as Lagerstroemia and maybe Milia will be used more regularly. I am also watching with interest the results of planting into sand and rubble.’