This year’s big project is to convert one of the garden’s quadrants into a chequerboard of different grasses and low-growing shrubs interspersed with squares of gravel. It’s a huge undertaking, one hundred feet square, so please don’t expect a transformation overnight!

The last six monoths have been taken up with major earthworks, marking out the area, levelling the ground (which slopes three feet from one side of the quadrant to the other!) and installing the paviours. Fortunately we were able to plant out the squares before winter set in.

Since then, the woodchippings and gravel have been laid so that we can now focus on landcsaping the surrounding area and reseeding it with grass. In a couple of months we will have finished our work — and the rest will be down to nature!