View of part of my back garden.

That area will be lovely.

Its lovely dwyllis and you are going to have such a lot of fun putting all your ideas into action...

I would move the dahlia into the border near the house, it will add a nice dash of colour.

Are dahlias hardy in your part of the world? We have to dig ours up every year. I had to look up Cabbage tree to discover it is a cordyline. Lots of us lost ours in the hard winter of 2010/11. It is a good idea to have a back drop of evergreens with a variety of leaf shapes and colours.

Yes dahlias appear to survive very well outdoors over the winter in our area .... not sure about the lower part of the South Island, which can get lots of snow & very cold winters. I do like evergreens & different foliage, so will be doing that along the fencelines .... at the top of my wishlist are some of the acers .... I think they are so gorgeous & plan to have one of the red ones & one of the golden ones.

It is great to have the space to plant larger trees and shrubs to give the garden a mature look quite early on. How about some Buddleia,there are many differnt ones. Alternifolia is a favourite of mine because it looks like a waterfall when it is in flower with the flowers all along the arching branches. Globosa is honey scented yellow balls and Weyerana is a late flowering soft yellow ball buddliea.

Ooh .. all of those sound lovely. Years ago, in England, I had a purple Buddleia ... I don't know what its name was, but it attracted lots of butterflies if I recall correctly. Alternifolia sounds like a great choice .... I'm wondering if I have had that in one of my gardens before, as the description you have given, sounds very like something I had in my garden in Buckinghamshire, & I loved it ... I think the flowers were a bit smaller & more dainty than the ones on the purple Buddleia I had before that.

I have a pic of the alternifolia on page 3 of my photos. All buddleia attract butterflies so are well worth having in the garden.

i have a buddleia called "purple knight"... the butterflies do love it. the scent is intense, like heavy perfume.