Features: Swedish style

"I'm a happy man," says Ulf Nordfjell, just hours after being told he's won Best in Show and a gold medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show on just his second try. "I'm a very, very happy man."

His elegant, understated garden for the Daily Telegraph is one he says he's wanted to do for years. It is a fusion of Swedish and English influences; a Scandinavian twist on the English cottage garden, and a little bit of indulgence for Ulf, who confesses he's enjoyed using plants such as delicate pink Rosa x odorata 'Mutabilis' and bearded irises, impossible to grow in Sweden with its harsh, snow-laden winters.

Right at the start, Ulf visited some of England's iconic gardens for inspiration. Many of the garden's features are borrowed directly from Stourhead, Sissinghurst and above all Hidcote. Lawrence Johnston's exquisite Arts and Crafts garden lent not only the hornbeam hedges and 'garden room' feel, but also the angular route of its pathways.

"Johnston wanted everybody to focus on the garden, so he put 90° angles in his pathways - so that's why it's 90°, so you see different things all the time," says Ulf.

It may have been inspired by Hidcote, but this is no blowsy, romantic riot of flowers. Geometric lines form a tapestry of simple interlocking shapes and clean lines: it may be a garden room, but this one is of unmistakeably Scandinavian design.

The planting gives each area a depth and complexity, but again there is that mildly unsettling combination of foreign-ness and familiarity. Ulf takes many of his plants straight from English gardens, but takes a 'less is more' approach to the way he uses them. The result is very un-English: what Ulf calls "two-layered planting", where blocks of one signature plant dominate a grouping and are shown off by the others around it. "I don't want them in a crowd - the plants are the stars in the garden," he says.

The result is planting combinations which are nothing short of inspirational. Iris germanica 'Superstition' holds haughty, deep purple heads above carpets of silvery Stachys byzantina 'Silver Carpet', the whole mirrored by the clear blue iris, I. g. 'Dusky Challenger' in the bed next door, while the firework-like spires of Eremurus 'Joanna' explode overhead.

Flower groups are carefully placed to shine out from the matt black wall at the back of the garden, giving the effect of a still-life painting and betraying Ulf's interest in Renaissance art. It's to be found again in a grouping of irises at the other end of the garden, picked out against a background of clipped yew. "It's very tricky to show a flower if you don't have a decent background," explains Ulf.

A landscape architect with 30 years' experience, Ulf has a well-established reputation as one of Europe's most admired designers. But by training, he is a biologist, and has never quite forgotten it. "Being a biologist was good from my point of view because I have it in my background, I don't have to think about ecological thinking - it's always there, it's in my instinct," he says.

This feeling for the ebb and flow of nature shines through in his garden, too. The tapestry is also divided into very specific ecological environments: dry and hot in the front, wet in the middle and shady at the back. In Sweden, where the climate is less forgiving, gardeners cannot get away with pushing the boundaries when placing plants in the garden: "right plant, right place" has to be followed to the letter.

It's a principle Ulf follows impeccably, yet he never lets it restrict his design. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the gravelly area at the front, pretty Campanula rotundifolia is partnered with Antennaria dioica, a delicate, thrift-like wildflower that grows along the roadside all over Sweden, while moisture-loving arum lilies (Zantedeschia aethiopica) are underplanted with the Swedish wetland grass Carex rostrata, one of Ulf's favourites.

"I really would like to encourage the younger generation to see how you can unite interesting architecture and design with horticultural sustainability," says Ulf. It's this supremely practical approach with an underlying deep affinity and respect for nature that shines through Ulf's work in Sweden and elsewhere. This garden may take its inspiration from Britain, but it has a Scandinavian soul.