Remember this back in July? Desperately trying to kill the grass by organic methods to make way for work to begin on Woodland World? Woodland World is a bit of an exaggeration really  - the whole area only contains 3 trees, and none of them are typical woodlanders; my garden simply isn't big enough to have them. Instead I have 2  flowering cherries and a katsura.  The cherries flower at different times, one is the purple-leaved Prunus cerasifera 'Nigra' which I planted a few hours before the birth of my daughter, Robyn.  This flowers early on bare stems with beautiful single pink flowers. It is a magnet for early bumblebees. It is on the north boundary and casts a lot of shadow.

The other is a fastigate form Prunus 'Amanogawa' which has double pink blossom which is fragrant, later in Spring. Being a tall and columnar plant it casts little shade and takes up little space, but is beautiful in flower and has spectacular fiery foliage in Autumn.

The third tree is the Katura, properly known as Cercidiphyllum japonicum 'Nana' which is perfect in a small garden like mine as whilst other varieties of this tree can get quite large, Nana stays small and almost Shrub like depending on how to prune it. I removed all the lower laterals and have it as a small tree. In Spring, the tree produces heart-shaped apple green leaves which are light and airy on the branches. In Autumn the colours changes to golden yellows, pinks and red. But the Katsura's party trick is to be very fragrant in Autumn as she shed her leaves and these smell of burnt sugar, or some would say candy floss as they fall. Whichever it is, it's a treat worth waiting for.

So why do I call it Woodland World? Well mostly, it is because it is the atmosphere I hope to invoke when you are in this part of the garden.  When I walk in the woods, there is a stillness and calm that no other space evokes in me. You feel enclosed, enveloped in green.  In woodland there are layers of plants, the trees, and under storey  which in my garden will be shrubs that either flower in spring, or have great autumn colour, and then the ground cover plants. Again I have chosen plants for their great Spring or Autumn colour.

During the summer I just want the garden to be a green fragrant place. To do this I have planted rambling roses through the  large cherry tree, and old-fashioned shrub and species roses on the boundries, which hopefully will add their heps to the Autumn display. One of the roses is a bit of a gamble, as I tried its yellow cousin some  20 years ago and it failed to thrive and eventually disappeared. I am hoping this is down to my lack of gardening skills at the time, and that is attempt to grow the white version Rosa banksiae 'Alba plena'     which flowers in Spring much earlier than  the other roses I have chosen.

'So where are you will all of this dreaming', you ask Well quite far on really - this is how the garden is looking today. Why the giant hole you ask. Well Woodland World is going to have a pond too. The iGit and I looked at the expanse of space that would be just green grass, and decided that we would like less grass and some water. The hole is about half the size of the eventual pond we intend to have and are hoping to create a little journey around this part of the garden.

By Spring we hope to have the pond complete, the planting finished, and the grass sown and growing! The small patio you can see in the left of the picture will have gone and the pond will have crept into this area too. The straight border edges will disappear and hopefully in their place some enticing sinuous pathways will have appeared  - watch this space!