Today I felt well enough to get out there and do some stuff and it occurred to me that with the limited time I had available the best thing was to just get on with it. I needed to plant out these poor homeless plants, confined to pots or temporarily heeled into a holding bed in the veg plot. I remembered something that Monty Don said about planting schemes that you should just try it, just plant things and if you decide later that it isn’t working then move them. After all my prevaricating about the middle garden why not simply put things in the ground and then if it didn’t look good  as the scene develops then move them later. I needed to switch of the part of me that wanted to get it all ‘right’ first time and switch on the part of me that just wanted to get it done. I know that the plants will be happier in the ground, especially as I have some nice free manure from across the road and so I can feed them mightily as I put them in the ground.

So, I got my bamboos and ferns and made a start under the large pine tree in the middle part of the garden. Ok, so there are gaps that I will need to fill and it looks a bit sparse at present, but I can work on that.

I like the black bamboo near to the white of the birch and I am planning more white birches to add later near to this space. Also I am thinking that I may add lily of the valley among the ferns or some other flowering plant that can manage shade.

Then I planted my clematis armandii. I am a little worried that it won’t be sheltered enough here so I planted the Daphne on the windward side of so that hopefully eventually it will provide shelter from the cold winds. Both are also evergreen and have scented flowers in the winter making that a good destination on sunny winter days.

In situ the plants of course look very small, but I was expecting that and I have to keep in mind that they will grow and a good plan takes account of final size.

And as Monty has said, if they don’t work where they are I can move them…