The thing about having such a large garden is that there is so much space to be filled with plants and so much room for a variety of ideas. In my acre I can make many different gardens and there is room for as many plants as I like. In my previous garden the boundaries of space helped me to be a better editor; there was only really room for my favourites and only room for a few garden design ideas. As my Dad used to say it is the constraints that create good designs as it is the ways in which you work within the limitations that you have that give your creativity room to shine.

The luxury of a really big garden turns out to be something of a hindrance to good design. I have as many ideas in one day as I have space to realise the ideas and of course my main constraints are now time and money, and even these are only really constraints regarding time and money in the present- we will be here ( we hope) for a very long time so we have years and years of time. The trouble is what to do NOW, I have the long term in my mind’s eye but the ideas feel so big and I don’t really know where to start.

So what I find myself doing is collecting ideas and collecting plants with only a vague idea of what to do next. I know that I need to clear more ground and create the canvas for the development of the ideas , but which land to clear and indeed where should I start?

The plants are also starting to ‘back up’, I am buying bargains and also potting up and transplanting self seeded shrubs and perennials to fill the spaces that one day will be created and soon I will run out of space in what was my vegetable garden and I will run out of pots. I find myself reluctant to plant many of these shrubs in the ground in case they end up in the ‘wrong place’ and are too difficult to move.  I seem to do one of two things; clear away plants that I don’t want to create spaces and gather plants in other spaces to be transplanted later. What I need to do is to fix on a plan and stick to it…. hmmmmmm.

Plants collected

Box –hardwood cuttings have created 7 miniature box shrubs

Philadelphus Virginal–  being sold for £2 a plant in Tesco- not to be resisted

Deutzia Scabra- another plant for £2 at Tesco

Hebe– white flowered and evergreen

Daphne aureomarginata- a bargain at my local nursery

Hazel– self seeded in the garden and ready for my wildlife hedge

Bamboo- Naughtily smuggled back from France where it was spreading near the garden in Brittany.

Ideas collected 

A wildlife hedge ( double thickness at least) where the ‘rabbit proof fence’ currently is, dividing the top garden from the lower garden where the cabin will be.

A ‘secret’ garden in the middle garden around the pergola. I’m thinking of a secluded garden with white flowering shrubs and ground cover to be a place for meditation and privacy. My current ideas are to create two paths in a cross ( one under the wisteria pergola and the other at right angles). Then have quadrants with shrubs and ground cover. Perhaps ferns, white flowered perennials. At the centre of the cross a water feature and places to sit. Scented flowers and year round interest. Oh, and lots of birch trees perhaps for very dappled shade and white trunks in winter.

7 varieties of plants only in any one area which was what Monty Don said on a programme once and makes perfect sense and would get away from my currently ‘dotty’ style of planting. The trouble is this needs a plan and goes against my natural plant collecting instincts ….perhaps just a simpler palette would make up for breaking this rule.

A huge wildlife pond/lake to be seen from the house just beyond the lawn and perennial beds. To link with the local watery landscapes and provide visual interest. It needs to be big and bold and not too high maintenance.

The orchard underplanted as a separate place my ideal is the orchard as a space buzzing with bees and with a variety of soft fruits as well as the tree fruits. To achieve this I will need to get it fenced off to stop the rabbits and deer from eating everything. Rustic fencing with raspberries and blackberries as the boundary.

This is of course not the definitive list or a set of definitive ideas. I have to trust in the process I think and do a little bit at a time. This is how the garden changes, it feels incremental but over time big changes happen- like bringing up children ( apt on this Mothering Sunday)! Which in a sense if one of the reasons for this blog. I look back at the early photos of some areas of the garden that I took before we even moved here and so much has changed even though at the time the changes looked small on the weekends when they were effected.