The big spring tour continues on the tranquil Terrace

You're still here and it's wonderful. Thank you for accompanying me. It's always so lovely to share my gardening joys. We're going to seek a little respite and relax on the Terrace. Fancy a beverage?

A moment of colour and calm

Leaving behind the heat and the heaps and vegetable ambitions, we’ll wander down toward the Terrace Garden. It’s a gentler sort of space… neither as utilitarian as the Kitchen Garden nor as wildly romantic as the Courtyard. Think of it as a well-behaved in-between: clipped topiary, containers mingling like polite guests at a summer party, and plants that (mostly) stay where they’re told. At this time of year, it almost steals the spotlight from the Courtyard, but we’ll come to that later.

North-facing and naturally cooler, the Terrace offers welcome relief from the heat of the Kitchen Garden and sun-drenched Flower Garden below. It stretches out over 14 metres (45 feet), with more than 50m² (540ft²) of warm sandstone paving underfoot.

There’s a greater sense of order here, or at least the illusion of it. Which is half the magic, really, isn’t it? A place for sitting with a cup of something steaming (or a glass of something chilled), for admiring the view, and for pretending (however briefly) that the rest of the garden isn’t in full negotiation with weeds, weather, and gastropod insurrections.

The space is framed by nine specimen Acer palmatum ‘dissectum’, each a study in grace, draped in botanical lace; clipped buxus topiary doing their formal thing, shouldering benches and adding their own brand of heft to the planting; English shrub roses full of new leaf and vitality in vintage galvanised dolly tubs; and herbaceous peonies rising proudly in blue-and-white willow-pattern ceramics from True Fair Trading (honestly they look almost too lovely to fill with soil).

A gently babbling Lotus Bowl water feature (also from True Fair Trading) brings the sound of slow contentment, while reclaimed architectural decor add a sense of time and quiet theatre with a gentile nod to the Arts & Crafts. There are Lutyens benches for resting, a relaxed seating area for lounging, and of course, “Shady Table” (my unofficial hosta sanctuary), safe from slugs and looking utterly at home in the light shade.

There’s a lot going on here, but somehow it never feels busy. In fact, the thing that might surprise you most is how ‘peaceful’ it is. The cottage itself blocks almost all the road noise, leaving you with just the birdsong and the gentle bubble of the lotus bowl. It’s soothing in that sneaky way that catches you off guard - you come here for a cup of tea and end up staying until the shadows stretch long across the paving. It’s deeply calming… a sanctuary within a sanctuary.

Glance to the left and, well, you can’t really miss it! The massive conservatory looms, a bit grand, a bit tired. From afar, it’s quite charming. Up close, you’ll see it’s slowly falling apart. Still, it’s holding on, and this time of year it serves as my greenhouse. Being north-facing, though, it’s not ideal, so I’ve had to rig up a propagation station with grow lights. Which, admittedly, makes the whole thing glow suspiciously at night. The police helicopter has been circling a bit more than usual lately. I’m fairly sure they think I have a DIY cannabis farm in there. (Spoiler: just tomatoes seedlings and a few ornamentals)

Planting with presence

The Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum) are the resident stars here, each one unfurling its new leaves with elegant drama. Their colours range from deep burgundy to the freshest lime, every shape is simply gorgeous, like brushstrokes in a Japanese painting. They cast filigree shadows over the stone paving and vintage planters, their delicate foliage catching the breeze with the kind of unhurried grace that makes you slow down without even realising.

(can you tell I’m a fan?)

Right in front of us stand two majestic red acers, one rooted in cast iron Victorian boiler, the other in a contemporary zinc planter, their bases surrounded by pots of Hakonechloa macra (Japanese forest grass) and Matteuccia struthiopteris (Ostrich Ferns). The grasses are just coming into their own now - fuzzy and fresh, sporting that unmistakable springtime “Fido Dido” look. The ferns are only just waking up, their tight knuckles releasing winter’s grip.

Behind the acers, a young Trachelospermum jasminoides (Star Jasmine) is making its quiet ascent along the fence, its dark, glossy foliage setting off the glowing ruby tones of the acers perfectly. The maple and grass combination came together very naturally. Hakonechloa weaves under and around all the acers - some growing in the same planters, others happier in their own pots. I like the flexibility of pots too, pushing them around and filling gaps. Their movement in the slightest breeze is soothing, almost hypnotic. They grow so generously I end up dividing them every couple of years… soon, I’ll be handing clumps to the neighbours like party favours.

You might notice a few twiggy things here and there. Those are the Hydrangea paniculata, rescued from the parched areas of the garden. They do love moisture around their toes, and while this terrace is dry overall, I’ve given them a second chance in pots filled with rich compost and a promise of regular water. Come late summer, their huge conical flowerheads will put on a brilliant show. I’ve got at least a dozen potted up, ready to cram into every available gap.

The most obvious and certainly the most colourful feature right now is the stellar spring bulb display. Over forty vintage galvanised planters (buckets, tubs, baths, and old boiler pots) stuffed with tulips, narcissus, violas, wallflowers, muscari, and hyacinths. It’s a vibrant show this year, no question.

It’s the tulips that really demand your attention: bold, unapologetic goblets of colour, bursting with vavoom! They spill across the far end of the terrace in a riot of fiery oranges, bubblegum pinks, buttercup yellows, and deep purples. Some stand tall and elegant; others are blousy, overblown, and frankly a bit scandalous. It’s joyful chaos and mostly intentional.

That said, the colour choices have got a little out of hand this year, practically a slap round the face. It makes me wince. I usually lean toward a more subtle blend: pastels with apricot or pale orange, anchored by the richness of deep burgundy ‘Queen of the Night’ or the velvety purple of ‘Negrita’.

But this year? Let’s just say that Design Impression (a sugary pink diva) and Daydream (a zingy orange extrovert) ended up side by side, and the result was… confrontational. Like a flamingo in a high-vis jacket. Ah well. Even in a garden, not every experiment earns a repeat performance. I’ve made a careful note of the standouts… and drawn a firm, slightly judgmental line through the gaudier characters.

Shady Table: A stage for quiet stars

Let’s backtrack a little… I know it’s impossible not to get drawn along to the tulips! But here we are at Shady Table, my DIY plant stage tucked neatly beneath the north-facing gable. It’s a bit of a hidden gem!

I’ll let you in on a little secret. It started as a cover-up job. A way to disguise all the unsightliness: meters, drains, vents. You know, the necessary uglies. I didn’t want to be looking at a blank expanse of wall either, so I started eyeing up Victorian wrought iron plant stands, stepped plant theatres, and French patisserie tables with their marble tops. All beautiful, yes! But also too small, and wildly expensive.

So, I built a table. Actually, it’s a stage. Just a simple build from scrap wood, painted in Cuprinol ‘Muted Clay’ - a shade that whispers rather than shouts. It recedes just enough to let the plants steal the show. And steal it they do.

This is prime real estate for shade lovers - part shade to full shade, cool and sheltered, only the front edge receives the strongest summer sunlight. The stage raises everything up to near chest height, so you really notice the detail: the deep veining in a hosta leaf, the feathery unfurl of a fern, the almost luminous chartreuse of a young shoot.

In these planters, in this microclimate, the hostas are vigorous and pristine. Not a nibble in sight. I credit the blackbirds and thrushes, who do a brilliant job patrolling for slugs, but also the dry conditions. I water in the morning and never in the evening - everything’s bone dry by nightfall, which really helps.

Originally, it was just hostas with hakon grass for company, but last year I rebuilt the whole thing. Bigger. Stronger. Honestly, you could probably land a Cessna on it. I just needed more space… more space for more hostas, naturally, but also room to explore other textures and forms.

Now it’s a leafy parade: ferns in all their feathery brilliance, delicate epimediums, elegant polygonatum (Solomon’s Seal), and the diminutive Erythronium. There’s something deeply satisfying about a plant collection that doesn’t shout but draws you in with its quiet intricacy, a green world of luxuriant murmurs.

The miniature garden of reflections

Just above Shady Table, a trio of mirrors catches your eye. Not flashy or ornate, but carefully positioned. They were a surprisingly worthwhile investment. When the hostas are in full flourish, their reflections spill across the wall, doubling the drama. It’s like a visual echo - lush foliage repeating itself, creating the illusion of depth, like the garden is folding in on itself.

As you walk up the path, you see windows of cherry blossom and sky shining out from the shady wall. The mirrors don’t just show you what’s there, they offer a new angle, a fresh perspective. In the soft light of evening, they come into their own. You see more than the just plants, layers of garden gently overlapping. It tricks the eye in the most delightful way, making it seem as though the garden doesn’t end at the wall… it just keeps going, somewhere quieter, somewhere secret and I love it!

With the cooling shade and babble of water behind us, let’s take a jaunty step forward and perch at the top of the Terrace steps. This is the very best view of the Flower Garden!

A garden of lines, layers, and living boundaries

From this vantage point, you can appreciate how the lines hold everything together. The layout is simple. Purposefully so. The triangular shape of the plot naturally narrows toward the potting shed, but the crisp geometry of the paths, the strong central axis and flanking side paths, brings a little more clarity and balance. They lead you. They help frame the views. They create pockets of anticipation, especially when the planting rises for summer.

Before the flowers steal the show, it’s the structure that does the heavy lifting. And in this garden, structure was everything from the very start. Winter of 2020/21, an awful lot of turf, compost, frost, bamboo canes and string, the first shrubs, and a lot of planning. That’s when this space began to take shape, and now, in its fifth year, the bones are really beginning to sing.

Stationed around the centre circle, there are four Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata’ - one for each quadrant - standing like sentinels in the planting. They do a fantastic job of anchoring everything. Mirroring their upright forms are four colossal cor-ten steel obelisks, each one smothered in repeat-flowering climbing roses. Together, they bring a vertical rhythm to the garden that feels deliberate, strong. At either end of the central path, clipped yew balls act as punctuation… bold, neat, and grounding.

Running along the backs of the borders is where the planting lifts the eye: cherry trees and viburnums; Euonymus europaeus with its fiery autumn colour; the architectural twist of corkscrew hazel; and the cool serenity of glaucous cedar. These are the upper story players, working hard to blur the boundary and soften the fence. Toward the narrow end of the garden, two weeping pears lend their gentle silvery arcs, while a pair of white birches stand wider apart, subtly pushing the space outward again.

As for the central path… yes, it’s straight! I did consider a serpentine route, something that might reveal the garden in teasing glimpses, but in the end, functionality won out. I needed clear access to the potting shed and bottom gate. Compost deliveries don’t wait for whimsy! And besides, from up here, the full layout is visible. Nothing’s hidden, but that feels right. This isn’t a maze. It’s an open invitation. “Come down and wander.” And if the layout is a little obvious, a little practical…well, that’s because I’m no garden designer. I’m just a gardener trying to make something that works for me, and that maybe delights me, too.

Stepping down into the Flower Garden

As we step down, the thing you probably notice first is just how many roses there are! This is really a rose garden in disguise. It’s been called the Flower Garden since it was made, but maybe it needs a new designation. With the climbers and ramblers, there are over 40 roses in this space alone.

We have climbers growing up those fabulous 3m (10ft) tall cor-ten steel obelisks and English shrub roses running along the path. You’re never far from their beautiful blooms and gorgeous fragrance. (38 of the 40 roses are from David Austin Roses - what can I say? I have a type.)

The next thing that may strike you is how lush and green it is. This garden is densely planted… a maximalist’s dream! Almost all the bare ground is covered already. The rapid growth this spring has taken me a little by surprise. I was planning to mulch all the borders, but with everything galloping ahead, I’m having to prioritise. The roses and delphiniums have been pampered first, of course, but I’m quickly running out of time for the rest.

Here, the borders are deep and generous, packed to the gunnels with herbaceous perennials and the early risers of spring. Even now, the textures and shades of green are enough to give a sense of movement and vibrancy. The path becomes narrower in feeling, even though it’s a straight run, because the planting leans in (nothing overly tidy here!) The structure and layout maybe formal, but the planting certainly is not.

You’ve just missed the spring bulbs. There are still a few late tulips hanging on, but earlier in the season, tufts of crocus and dwarf iris stitched colour along the front edge of the borders, adding a welcome bit of sparkle at ankle height.

Now, those borders are being smothered (in the best possible way) by a tapestry of hardy geraniums. Under the roses and spilling gently into the paths, the sun-loving ‘Rozanne’, ‘Orion’, and G. psilostemon are beginning their marathon flowering stretch. In the shadier corners, G. phaeum and G. nodosum quietly do their thing, though ‘Rozanne’, ever the surprise performer, also takes quite well to the shade, scrambling gracefully where she can.

Alchemilla mollis is already fluffing up at the edges, ready to catch the morning dew. And the geums! They’re just beginning to show off! Mrs Bradshaw was the first to flower this year, but Totally Tangerine, Pink Petticoats, Scarlet Tempest are not far behind.

Throughout the borders, there’s rhythm, plants that lead your eye along the path. Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ is frothing up in clouds of sage and blue, later in the season Gaura ‘Summer Breeze’ floats above like little white butterflies on wiry stems, and yet-to-bloom dahlias like ‘Twynings After Eight’ will be ready to join the show, their dark plummy foliage acting as the perfect pause and foil.

Repeated on both sides of the path, but not in mirror image, these plants bounce visually from one side to the other, deliberately offset for movement and flow. Interspersed throughout are vertical moments following the same rhythm: Delphinium elatum ‘Faust’ preparing for its skyward launch, fluffy pink tails of Sanguisorba hakusanensis ‘Lilac Squirrel’, and tall stems of whimsical Valeriana officinalis and Verbena bonariensis, with eye-popping euphorbias, and it all starts to hum with energy.

And then there are the grasses. I was late to that party, admittedly, but now I’m hooked. Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’ is already on the rise, elegant and upright, it’s wooly inflorescence standing all summer. Molinia ‘Transparent’ lives up to its name, catching the light in a way that makes it almost disappear until it moves. Planted closer to the front than you'd expect, its small footprint makes it surprisingly polite. At the back, the towers of Miscanthus will rise and those clumps are getting quite serious! But it’s a good kind of serious. A structural, swaying, heft, an ever-so-slightly dramatic kind of serious.

Ah, we reach the centre circle. This centre spot was originally destined to be a small fountain - something classical and bubbling, you know? But in the end, I quite like the space as it is. It’s a pause, a point of stillness, a moment to choose your direction, or to simply not have to contort yourself with a wheelbarrow around a watery obstacle!

Fancy a rest? Let’s sit on this bench for a moment. From this seat, you can look across to the other bench where I’ve created a near mirror of the planting: dwarf lilac and a repeat of rose and salvias, and of course the rhythmic punctuation of euphorbias bouncing their chartreuse glow all the way down the garden. It’s one of those rare spots where symmetry sneaks in and actually feels quite grounding.

Now, before we continue, take a deep inhale through the nose. Go on. That unmistakable perfume wafting through the air? That’s Wisteria ‘Ikoyama Fuji’. Arguably one of the best varieties for fragrance. When it hits its stride, the whole garden is filled with its rich, decadent scent. You can barely walk through this space without smiling. It’s that good.

From here, we’ll carry on down towards the potting shed. As we move, you’ll notice the borders gently tapering, narrowing down to around 2 metres (6ft) deep near the end. It becomes a more intimate space, a shift in tone as the planting transitions into something more shaded, woodland-like.

Beneath the pears and birches and the fiery stems of Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’, I’ve tucked in shade lovers and winter scent specialists - glossy-leaved skimmia and sarcococca - the kind that release their perfume just when you need it most. There are elegant hellebores, frothy astrantias, Japanese anemones, delicate bleeding hearts (Dicentra, or Lamprocapnos now, if we’re being proper), and charming arching Solomon’s Seal. And yes, those straggly leaves you see? All that’s left of the snowdrops. They did their job early and slipped away quietly.

Right at the very end, nestled in the narrowest point of the garden beneath the silver birch, there’s a rather special corner. The large shrub you see tucked into the corner is Lonicera × purpusii 'Winter Beauty’. It’s not a beautiful shrub by any stretch of the imagination - rather leggy, somewhat awkward - but when winter comes, it truly earns its keep. It becomes absolutely festooned with clusters of creamy white flowers, and the fragrance… wow, the fragrance! For my money, it’s one of the finest to be found in any garden - rich, sweet, and completely unexpected in the coldest months.

More than just a treat for us, it’s a lifesaver for the bees. On those rare sunny (and not quite freezing) winter days, it’s literally alive with bumblebees, bouncing from flower to flower. That’s exactly why it’s here, right by the potting shed. This little patch is the only part of the garden that reliably catches the winter sun, and from our seats here, we can sit and soak up, not just the warmth, but also the mingling perfumes of lonicera, skimmia, and sarcococca. It becomes a kind of winter haven—for us and for the fuzzy-butts alike.

And just like that…

We find ourselves at the end. Boots a little dustier, cheeks a little rosier, heads hopefully full of spring’s quiet marvels. The garden, as always, is a generous host: equal parts serenity and spectacle, always with ‘Bobbin the Robin’ not far behind looking for tasty morsel.

There’s something wonderfully grounding about this time of year, isn’t there? All that fresh growth, the fluttering leaves, the buzz and babble of returning life. It makes you stand a little taller, breathe a little deeper, perhaps a little easier?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this gentle ramble through my personal private patch, where nothing is ever quite finished, but everything is almost exactly as it should be… for now. No doubt the weeds are biding their time, the roses are dreaming up their next performance, and somewhere, a bee is still trying to find its way out of a closed tulip.

Thank you for walking with me, for listening to the plants (and their overenthusiastic interpreter). Come back soon! The garden always has more to say. And if you leave with pollen on your nose or compost under your nails, even better. That means you did it properly.

🌿