Blog 6. Middle Garden (1)

Having told you how much I admired the changes you made in every other area and photo, now I am going to be diificult - the last 'before' picture had such a tranquil feel and the colours were so gentle and soothing - sorry, but I liked it 'before' better than 'after' in this one case! You can't please everybody all the time, can you?

I know what you mean, but we are comparing different seasons! It's not so colourful for a lot of the year. Also, the fruit trees were very diseased and the conifers overgrown and brown in the middle. We put the pagoda where that fruit tree was. We did grieve some of the loss but everything has to earn its keep for many months of the year.

Well, of course you know best! I do like the Pagoda, though. Shame when shrubs/trees just have to go, isn't it.

I'm exactly the opposite of Spritz lol I prefer the after shots. Sad to lose any plants but I think the results were worth it.

Sometimes one has to make a difficult decision. We have put in plants and then taken them out again when we realised it didn't work. Sometimes, it's the position in the garden. I place a large plant and walk away, then turn quickly and see what it looks like. If it passes the first test, then I look from different angles. I might even go to the first and second floor of the house to see what it looks like from there. Sometimes it needs to go into a different position completely. My husband says I play Chess!

Sometimes we have to scrap a plant - we've taken out most of the Eleagnus - they grew too fast and looked scruffy for most of the time. If we'd been able to allow them to get large they may have been ok, but our garden is a large bonsai!!!

Scale and proportion - we choose tete a tete daffodils because they look the right size. We did have an Acer Crimson King with huge leaves - that had to go eventually because it looked wrong.