Pantaloons for plants  have been compulsory here since the 2010/2011 cold winter that we weren’t supposed to get but which nevertheless cost us a heartbreaking number of evergreen shrubs : pittosporums - from tall Pittosporum tenuifolium Purpureum down to ‘Tom Thumb’ plus freestanding bays, coprosmas, corokias, ceanothus, big clipped Rhamnus alaternus Argenteovariegata,  griselinia and even escallonias and Olearia macrodonta. These were all structurally vital plants the loss

It’s a few years since I first became acquainted with the concept of ‘masting’.  Andrew, having driven off to the village shop one day,...

Anyone studying this garden for just a minute would see that I am a sucker for symmetry. It’s a weakness. The late great Christopher Lloyd warned against the ‘one on this corner, one on that corner’ mentality. Even identical varieties of plant in perfectly analogous positions (ie not one facing south and the other facing north) would never develop exactly the same way, so it is best, the master said, to go for balanced asymmetry,     Alas, that seems too sophisticated for me.

Merlin’s garden is a concept garden and, in truth, I am not necessarily a fan of concept gardens, i.e. gardens which  represent an idea...