To garden is to believe in tomorrow

 I read that yesterday...and it is so true, you plant your garden with all the things that take your fancy in the hope they will, in turn put on a great display for years to come.

The garden we inherited with our 1930s house is a manageable third of an acre, thereabouts, it's secluded from our neighbours with various trees. It's sunny most of the day, the morning sun streams in from the front into the back garden, as the sun moves round, the back garden catches the sun right through until early evening when it sinks behind the houses.  Most of the planting needed to be remove long past it's sell by date and not quite our thing.  A few trees had to come out too, don't freak, we do plant others in their place, not necessarily the same place, but a tree for a tree so to speak.

My earliest memory of a beautiful garden full of colour and benches to relax and take in the view, in the garden and beyond was a relatives garden in Lancing, high on the hill, or it seemed so then.  I remember following them round the garden, proudly showing all the things they had planted, wondering how they could possibly find it all so interesting apart from knowing all the names of the plants... Never thinking one day I would be just as besotted with gardening.

Over the years I have visited many gardens that have influenced me, but I'll talk about them later.

So I embarked on the re-design and re-planting of the garden about 18 months ago.

To make it easy to follow the progress the garden divides into four areas, five if you include the from garden too. This is how we refer to them.

1. Ornamental grasses bed

2. Maple bed

3. North facing bed  

4. Vegetable garden

5. Front garden

This is my journey (my garden diary, to be more precise).

Wisteria on south facing wall