Kent, United Kingdom

I've been working in London off and on for the last 2 and a half years and in my absence my small garden has exploded. It's a coastal garden but we are protected by a very big sea wall, which is also our boundary (at high tide the garden is below sea level), and this is now covered with both Virginia Creeper (quinquefolia, already sppreading onto our part of the wall from next door when we moved in), and ivy, which looks to me like Birdfoot. Over a period of three or four years I planted box, bay, privet, a couple of yews, cortaderia, phormium, tamarisk, ceanothis, a couple of cordylines (one in a pot), a cycas, and 2 yuccas. All have prospered but nothing has been pruned till now. We have pulled out invasive phormium which was overhanging a path, cut back the box to give other plants a chance, and trimmed the privet. I am now nostalgic for the small lawn we inherited, and which I edged with chunks of York stone, also inherited, but to do so I need to push back the yucca. The garden is wonderfully Mediterranean in appearance and I don't want to compromise that. Kids grown up so no problem with spikeys.

On plant Yucca filamentosa

• 26 Apr, 2009