Rooms with a view

Plan your plantings to favour your windows

- Peter Seabrook

ONE of the first things done each morning is to pull back the curtains, take a look down into the garden and watch the birds. Similarly, working in the kitchen, time will be spent viewing all the plants and flowers across thE back garden, probably spending more time looking out, rather than stopping to appreciate things when outside amongst them.

There is a well-established Camellia japonica ‘RL Wheeler’ growing against our dining room window. For two years now because of lockdown, there has been no one to share the glorious view over a meal. Blackbirds had built a nest in the branches and it was interesting watching them sit on eggs and raise a family within two feet of the dinning room.

Tall growth and evergreen foliage had reached the point of making the room dark, so this was cut hard back after flowering last year, and this year the blooms on remaining branches are bigger than ever as a result.