Standing on the north side looking back towards the cottage

I have blathered on about the 3 areas I split the garden into for the past year now. Its pretty much the anniversary of the first stages of the garden's transformation  from kids playground to grown ups chill zone.  The trellises that partition the garden went in a year ago this month. I would have liked to have had hedges, Yew especially as I love its fragrance and the atmosphere it creates around itself. It is a calming and Zen like plant. I feel a great connection to nature when I am near a Yew.  Enough of the aged hippy already! Hedges just wouldn't have worked, they would have taken up too much room, and would have stolen too much light.  You have seen Rose World, and Chicken World and they are both pretty much complete and fit in with the vision I had of them.

Woodland World as I called it, is much harder to envision, and will take much longer I fear.  I wanted to create a cool and sheltered space. The garden faces directly south and in the summer (yes, ok , I am aware of the irony of that statement - 'WHAT SUMMER?'  you say) and can get very hot as the white walls of the cottage reflect the heat and it can become uncomfortably hot to sit in the garden.  The purple leave Cherry on the north border creates a delicious pool of shade which is wonderful cool place to sit under on hot days listening to its leaves rustle in the breeze.

Creating that much shade brings it own problems. Finding plants that will thrive in such conditions is challenging, and the grass is more moss than grass.  Thus far I have added a couple more trees, a fastigate Cherry, and a Katsura.  I am not convinced I put these in the right positions though, so this Autumn, they will be swapped positions.

Standing on the south side -  I made the scarecrow yesterday for the allotment

I also planted one of the borders with ornamental grasses, heleniums, and other 'prairie' type plants in hot colours, predominantly red, purples and oranges. This is a total failure and will be dug up as soon as the weather stays dry enough for long enough for me to do it. It really offends my eye.

I am not convinced about the West facing border either. It has 3 climbing roses in it, which only went in this Winter, so have yet to achieve their full potential; a Claire Austin climbing sport, and 2 Gloire de Dijon.   The delphiniums, campanulas, lupins, and lilies have done well, and in general I am happy with them. The yellow lilies may have to go though, as the colour is much more strident than I had envisaged. I thought it was a soft pastel yellow, and it is in fact verging on orange.   I wanted to keep the colours muted, to try and enhance the coll and calm atmosphere I want to create in this part of the garden.

As you can see, there is black plastic everywhere. We have a serious ground elder problem, and no amount of digging seems to do the trick, and I am adverse to chemical warfare. We are hoping that by covering the entire area in plastic, we can starve it of light and kill it that way. Eventually we hope to reseed the whole area and have a lush lawn. Pigs might do a fly past when we achieve this!

The North border is probably the most successful so far, although I thought this would be the hardest. Its filled with Hellebores and winter flowering bulbs. A couple of Daphnes; Rhododendron;  a variety of ferns; martagon lilies; foxgloves; meconopsis; eleagnus and a variety of roses.  The pink fluffy rose under the purple leave Cherry is Paul's Himalayan Musk, and is wonderfully fragrant. It only went in this year and has already made 5 feet from the ground. It's a vigorous rambler and will make 30 feet according to the books, and the plan is to have it cascading out of the Cherry through the summer to remind me of its early spring blossom.  The cherry and me have a Marmite relationship. I loved it when I first planted it. I adore it when it is in blossom before the leaves come. But once in full leave it is a bit oppressive, so I am hoping the rose will lighten its presence.  People suggest that I should cut it down. But I haven't the heart to do that. It's known here as Robyn's Tree, because I went in to labour planting it.  Also, all my cats, rabbits and guinea pigs etc are buried under it, and I couldn't bear to disturb them.

We hope to have some water in this space too. We both really want a pond, with moving water. Something that tinkles gently, rather than the rush of water that reminds me of a horse peeing in so many ponds I have seen.  We cant decide whether to be formal or natural, and where to place it is debated too.

Woodland World I think will certainly take much longer to get right,  because I don't have a clear vision in my mind's eye of how I want it to look. I know how I want it to feel, but the structure evades my imagination.

I'll keep you posted as we develop this area. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.