Sculpture can make or break a garden so it’s worth choosing a piece only when you’ve seen it in a garden setting. Even then, it’s worth getting the sculptor to help place the piece in your own backyard or rolling acres.

Summer is the time to go out and choose a sculpture – or find a sculptor to commission – by visiting some of the exhibitions around.

1. Sculpture at Goodwood is a well-established and permanent exhibition. Although all 70 pieces are specially commissioned, they are for sale and they change regularly. Currently on show is a piece by Abigail Fallis made from shopping trollies.

2. Mythic Garden showcases West Country artists working in wood stone and metal. The exhibition is part of Home Lane arboretum and nursery.

3. on form is a biennial exhibition of stone sculpture held in the classically beautiful gardens of Asthall Manor near Burford in Oxfordshire. Even if you aren’t going to buy a sculpture, the gardens by Julian and Isobel Bannerman of Highgrove fame are outstanding. They drift from formal rose and knot gardens beside the house, through wildflower meadows down to the river Windrush.

4. Broomhill, near Barnstable in Devon, includes work by Laury Dizengremel, creator of the terracotta warrior tennis players, among 300 other pieces. The wooded 10-acre site makes a perfect setting.

5. In the Channel Islands, Art Park features over 200 sculptures around Sausmarez Manor on Guernsey. The organisers will help suggest and guide collectors and garden owners to commission sculptures to a given price.

6. The University of Leicester is staging a sculpture show in their botanic garden.

7. When choosing sculpture, you need to think about how it will change as light alters through the day and as it weathers. For example, ask yourself whether you are happy to clean the sculpture or leave it to be altered by the elements.

8. Delivery can be an issue, particularly if your garden can only be accessed through the house.

9. If your sculpture is made from wood or metal it will decay and, eventually, fall to bits in most cases. Given the price tags for some of today’s sculptures, you need to give this consideration when buying.

10. Size matters. Small sculptures may vanish in a garden setting. Large ones may dominate and overwhelm a small garden. It is best to get a feel for the space a sculpture may take up by making a rough outline of it in bamboo and string before investing in the real thing.

Explore Gardens

• Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

• Chelsea Flower Show

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