A garden becomes more complex as it ages, with each successive season adjustments made of necessity or simply the way the garden wants to go. The layer upon layering is a push and pull conversation that deepens with what you find as the garden comes to life after its slumber. The successes and failures, the spontaneity of mingling that comes with self-seeding and one plant’s ability to assert itself over another’s.

We are now at the beginning of our eighth growing season after the garden was planted and it is good to now understand the rhythms and its needs. Over the last few years, and in response to the trees and the shrubs now having presence, I have been planting early spring ephemerals under their skirts. First flowering cardamine, galanthus, hellebores and narcissus that will light the garden early whilst we are still enjoying the remains of the last year in skeletons. Not having bulbs amongst the skeletons makes for easier cutting when they are finally felled. The bulbous additions have demanded we start the spring clearances in carefully choreographed moves to work freely whilst the bulbs are still below ground. As the winters get milder, these first clearances have shifted forwards to the last couple of weeks of December and I can see our actions will need to move forward again once the new sand garden starts to establish.