From snowdrop drifts in January to frost-lit topiary in December, a month-by-month guide to manor garden highlights, plus the closures and crowds worth planning around.

A practical guide to telling geometric parterre beds apart from naturalistic landscape gardens, with tips for reading, walking and enjoying both on a manor visit.

Rushing the main axis, ignoring plant labels and skipping the walled sections are the commonest ways visitors miss what a formal manor garden was designed to show them.