All going well here, hope life’s good for you too.

Spring shoots are starting to come up which is all good. It’s the time of year where people start to think about having their garden ‘sorted out for summer’. It’s actually a really good time to get going on a redesign – I know I have at home. There’s nothing left in my garden now but the odd shrub that I couldn’t stand to have ripped out (there’s a lovely little Acer, and a witch hazel, and a really pretty Amelanchier), so it’s pretty much just bare soil now. We had to have a tree removed (an old Ailanthus altissima or Tree of Heaven); it had honey fungus, poor thing, and was going to fall over onto next-door’s shed. Not a good look. So while we were at it we thought we might as well get the rest of the overgrown rubbish taken out too. So no more veg seedling planting and putting my hand on fallen Mahonia leaves, hoorah.

I had my friend Steve, a local landscaper, come over – and he winched out all the trees and shrubs so I have a fantastic blank canvas now. I am inspired by the Piet Oudolf planting at Scampston Hall in Yorkshire. I was there in the summer and it’s just a super-relaxed dreamy mix of large drifts of perennials – and there’s a fantastic restaurant too. I’m going to try and recreate the secluded seating areas surrounded by grasses and late summer flowering Rudbeckias and Verbenas. Glass of cold white and put the feet up next August, maybe.

Whether I can afford to get this done is a different issue, of course! However, if you have a bit of cash and want a brand new outside living room then give me a ring or an email (it’s all sorted out now, having been a pain in the neck for the last few weeks) – click the contact button to the left - and we can have a friendly, no-obligation chat about it.

Look forward to hearing from you.