And so it starts

As I stroll through Wisley or some other grand garden, I look at the fantastic plantings and in my head my garden grows, so that in my imagination it could include a huge prairie border or a hidden grotto, when to be honest, fitting another rose in would involve digging up some more of the tiny patch of lawn. I was away for six months recently, by the time I returned, my notebook full of plans pretty much envisaged a new Versailles.

Having said that, I looked out of the back door, one evening in early September this year and thought, 'I'm happy with that, it's not a bad looking garden'. Three years after moving in, things are starting to come together.

This was the garden when we first moved here. Southwest facing, it gets the sun, but the ash tree in the centre claws quite a lot of moisture out of the ground and this, combined with the sandy soil and all the fences, means quite a battle to give plants enough water.

As you can see from the photograph the garden was dominated by a huge shed drawing the eye down the garden, the grass was more mud than anything else and what borders there were were encased in concrete edging.

This is the garden this September, there is still a long way to go but I hope I've learned a few things along the way that I can share, while also documenting the journey onwards.