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The result is a garden rich in flowers and at its peak in July when the herbaceous plants are in full fling. It is slightly sunk under the drive and tall walls and outbuildings, except on one side where it borders a field and a stream. It feels like a walled garden, full of grass paths and enclosures topped with swags of climbers.

Down one side is a generous border, passing from deep red through yellow to blue. Blue Solanum ‘Glasnevin’ winds into cardoons underplanted with hostas. Tall alliums shine alongside purple lupins. Bordering the field is a stream bed, where marginal plants thrive – astilbes, candelabra primulas, Libertia ixioides and monkey flowers.

The garden also has plenty of height. There are birches, Prunus serrula, contorted willows and bamboos. It’s the sheer energy of the place that earned it its votes. As in any new garden, time will call for some editing, but what a business-like start. The garden is even open for the National Gardens Scheme, and the children, rewarded with a choice of home-made cakes, help man the gate.

Best Green Space

What could breed greater level-headedness than a career in gardening and horticultural therapy? Robyn Carter has just that. After Kew and professional gardening, she worked for Social Services in horticulture for the disabled and is now a senior manager for the NHS. Her house is in a rural development near York, in the grounds of an old hospital. The garden – north-facing, 35ft by 100ft – sits in the shade of mature Scots pines. No place for gardening, you’d say.

But Robyn has pulled it off beautifully and with the minimum of interference. “I want it to feel as if you are walking through English woodland,” says Robyn, “but embellished, more lush, with the season extended.” And so it is: simple, well thought through and, as the Green Space category requires, sustainable and full of good ecological practice. It’s a real charmer and so close to winning in its category.

“To me, sustainability is fundamental,” says Robyn, “but if you get it right I don’t think you have to compromise aesthetics. You can grow what you want if you recognise which are the right plants for the position; then you don’t need pesticides or artificial feeds. Being organic underpins how I garden, but it’s not stamped on my forehead.”

It’s a sensible approach and one that appeared in all the best entries for the Green Space award. Yes, Robyn has lots of bird boxes; yes, plants are only watered when first planted; yes, there are plenty of native plants, but the garden has not been filled with gadgetry in the name of pest control and water-saving. The style of gardening and the plants used have sprung from the atmosphere of the place as demanded by the pines.

The design makes sense of the space, too. There is a generous patio to stop the house feeling threatened by the trees. But there is no lawn (it would not grow well under pines anyway), only a pine-needle path winding through the trees to the fence, a simple seat and a view of fields. Down the sides are larch-lap fences weathered to invisibility.

But the planting underfoot is good, and right. In sun by the patio are the more flamboyant plants – roses, catmint, phlox, columbines, euphorbias, lavender and rosemary. Further down in the shade are foxgloves, hellebores, white dicentras, hardy geraniums, Anemone japonica, hazel, holly and flowering currants.

Too simple to be a runner-up, you say? Not at all. It’s an attractive, romantic, usable place all season, it interferes minimally with the local ecology, and best of all, it can be looked after with the fewest of resources. By choosing a kind of gardening and a palette of plants that on this site do not need extra feeding, watering, mulching or doctoring, Robyn has created a truly sustainable garden.

NEXT WEEK: TWO CATEGORY WINNERS

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