Starting All Over Again Is Exciting
IN July last year, we downsized to a garden that is twice as long and twice as wide as a tennis court, with an allotment and a half where we grow things to eat and flowers to cut. We also have an enclosed courtyard outside the kitchen, with room for a table to eat on sunny days. Starting again is exciting: starting small really concentrates the mind.
My priority has always been atmosphere. At first, a rectangle bounded by other gardens seemed hardly the place from which to conjure all absorbing surroundings, but, as soon as massive laurels, a Lawson cypress and a paved barbecue terrace at the top end of the plot had been banished and the tidy lawn had changed into soft meadowy grass, the garden started to feel more promising.I knew I wanted an orchard, masses of bulbs and flowers in grass, a few beds for favourite summer plants, some winter flowers and a greenhouse, but, in small gardens, too much is too much, so restraint has been key.
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