Cristina Posner jokes that when it comes to tackling her four-acre garden, near Barmouth, in Gwynedd, it would be an advantage to have one leg shorter than the other. With her boyfriend, Brian Wilson, 67, Cristina lives in a four-bedroom Victorian house on a steep slope overlooking the Mawddach Estuary, in Snowdonia National Park. From here, they can watch the river tides and, in the distance, the sky changing from azure to graphite across the Cadair Idris mountains.

Although she spent her working life in investment management, Cristina, 56, is an artist by inclination. Since moving to Wales from Hertfordshire seven years ago, she has taken up painting botanical subjects. Her artist’s eye extends beyond the canvas, however, to the bigger picture of her garden and how it should sit within such a dramatic landscape.

“The view is so astounding, the border below the house shouldn’t fight it,” she says. “I had lots of colour there when I first planted it, and it looked awful.” She changed to muted tones of green, blue and grey – those of the water, sky and hills. “Now your eye is not distracted from the view so much,” she says.

When they moved there, Cristina wanted a challenge – and she got one. Surrounding the house was a jungle of bracken, brambles and laurels. It was so impenetrable that her cousin was brought in, with a digger, to clear it and make some access paths.

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But there was a limit to what even he could do: the ground beneath the thin soil, a mixture of slate and granite, is impossible to shift without dynamite. So, rather than follow a tidy garden plan, the paths and beds could be created only where the bedrock allowed. It took a year’s hard work.

One advantage of having such stony ground is that the couple could make use of materials found on the land to build the walls and paths. The work was carried out by Victor Pett, a local gardener who helps them two days a week. “There is not one bought piece of stone,” Cristina says proudly.

The climate in this part of Wales is mild, and the soil acidic, so it would be difficult for her to ignore the local favourites, rhododendrons and azaleas. Instead of using them throughout the garden, however, she has confined them to one area, which has its moment in spring.

Although most of the garden is sloping, there is a large flat expanse, enclosed by tall trees, to one side of the house, in which Cristina can let rip with colour. In its previous life, it was a riding manège, and was covered in estuary sand. To support a wide range of plant life would have meant importing huge amounts of topsoil, at considerable expense. So Cristina and Brian, who is happy to be the groundsman, decided to dig it out instead, making what they call a “plake” (not quite a pond, not quite a lake). They then used the spoil to soften the angle of the slope next to it. Being mainly subsoil and sand, it is of poor quality and free-draining – just the thing for drought-lovers such as California poppies, alliums, euphorbias and grasses.

There is a lot of box hedging in the garden, so it was worrying when it was hit by blight last year. Rather than spray or remove the bushes, Cristina has taken a laissez-faire approach, and this seems to be paying off: the brown patches of wood are gradually regrowing.

Another scourge is the weather. The garden was shortlisted for a “best view in the country” competition recently. Unfortunately, when the judges visited, the only view they had was of raindrops trickling down the window.

The reader Cristina Posner, 56, an artist

Location Near Barmouth, Gwynedd

Conditions Steeply sloping, with thin, acidic soil

Description Four acres, designed to sit well within the wider landscape

Cristina’s tips

- Think how plants relate to the landscape as a whole, as well as to their immediate neighbours

- When planting a new area, lift and divide existing perennials to fill in the holes between young plants. Otherwise it gets expensive

- Buy perennials in autumn, when they have filled their pots – you often get three or four for the price of one

- Only grow plants that will be happy in their site. Conditions vary within even the smallest garden

Are you proud of your garden? Then share it with other Sunday Times readers. Send up to six high-resolution images of the garden at its best to readersgardens@sunday-times.co.uk, with a brief description of the garden and your contact details. Or send prints to Readers’ Gardens, Home, The Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1ST. We will choose our favourites and publish a selection online. We regret that we cannot return pictures sent by post

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