Take a tour of Monty’s garden

In this, the garden’s 30th year, I am as keen to get existing parts of Longmeadow right – improving and refining them so they fully realise their promise – as I am to start new projects. The art of gardening is as much concerned with delight in small things as dramatic gestures.

ORCHARD AND PATHS

Where the hens roam and apples fall every autumn, the grass of the orchard was scratched up last year to make a seed bed for wildflowers. We repeated this along grassy paths, too. Yellow rattle should suppress dominant grasses and each year will bring new waves of flowers, as annuals come and go, and perennials establish themselves.

NEW GREENHOUSE

The biggest change over winter was building our huge new greenhouse, bought second-hand and storm-damaged from a nursery. It replaces one we took down to make space for the Paradise Garden. I will grow as wide a range of greenhouse crops as I can, and overwinter citrus here. Surrounding the greenhouse are new raised beds, primarily for growing on cuttings and perennials from seed, but also for asparagus and pumpkins this summer.

PARADISE GARDEN The Paradise Garden needs a lot of tweaking now it’s entering its third season. I shall take out all the Stipa tenuissima and change them for a more robust grass – maybe pheasant grass (Anemanthele lessoniana), which grows well here and has the right wispy frondescence. I am thinking about changing the crab apples, too.

BINS AND BERRIES

We have moved the compost heaps and leafmould bays away from their old site in the Veg Garden to a new spot, between the Berry Borders and Tom’s shed, right on the northern boundary. The new Berry Borders will continue to develop, as shrubs settle into this flood-enriched space. This is giving us an area for wildlife and pollinators, on the outer edges of the garden.

COPPICE Nigel died last May, and we miss him still. But he remains in the garden, buried under a large stone, alongside other family dogs (and his collection of 50 tennis balls), in the Coppice. A mix of foxgloves and campion will have sprung up around the stone by the anniversary of his passing.

WOODLAND GARDEN I’m aiming to underplant the space between the Coppice and the Writing Garden (which has never had its own name) to become a woodland garden. The ground is rock hard and the tree roots extensive, but that is all part of the challenge. I like the idea of hydrangeas and unclipped box, as well as masses of bulbs in spring and cyclamen in autumn.

JEWEL GARDEN

The most dramatic change this spring will be the removal of the blighted box hedges in the Jewel and Cottage Gardens. I have clung on, hoping they might recover, but the time has come. Rather than replace them, I’ll change the planting so it comes right to the paths. It’s a new beginning for this central space.