The garden at Rustling End, tucked deep within the Hertfordshire countryside, has been a labour of love for owners Julie and Tim Wise, who have spent more than 30 years building, planting, and tending it. “Like any garden it evolves from year to year, and one of my chief joys is seeing wild plants parachute in and take their place alongside those I’ve planted,” says Julie. “We also love watching the bees, butterflies, bats and birds that find food and shelter here.”
When the couple bought their small 18th-century cottage with its three-quarters of an acre of land, Julie relished the prospect of transforming the scruffy field and hedgerows into the garden she’d been dreaming of. Inspired by the likes of Rosemary Verey and Penelope Hobhouse, not to mention the manor house gardens she’d visited with her mother, Julie chose to
