Our context here is everything and the biggest driver in considering how to seat the garden and plan for it feeling right within its landscape. The east-west panorama, the roll of one hill against another and the weather that barrels down the valley are all considerations. Big skies, the cohesive sway of meadow and the dark lines of the hedgerow vegetation. You have to be careful how you work with plants that are not from here or part of it.

So, I take time to consider the mood of each and every plant and what they feel right with and are happy to be alongside, but it is not always easy to deny yourself the pleasure of something loved but from a faraway land. The tree dahlias from the temperate mountains of Mexico, that never quite make it to bloom before the first frost, but are so compelling for their strident bolt of upright stem and lush race for the sky this late in the season. The gunnera from Brazil, which I have nestled in a hollow, so they are not visible until you come upon them and then feel dwarfed by their enormity and ability to take you somewhere else entirely. These are the plants that break the rule or make me do so for the love of them.