Garden makeover #1

There's only one problem with my garden - I don't like it very much.

I don't mean the plants (I lurve them) but the layout. I inherited it from the previous owner, who was a special needs teacher with many, many special needs of his own - totally barmy and it's entirely reflected in the lunatic way he's laid out the garden. I got rid of most of the crazy plants he put in as soon as we moved in (I mean, who plants Rhododendron ponticum in their garden?!). Mustn't be too scathing though as he did pass on my much-beloved Lonicera xylosteum.

However - though it's easy enough to rip out plants and replace them, doing the same thing with the basic layout is one of those huge tasks that makes you want to just go back to sleep.

Well, now that I'm emerging, blinking, into the light having spent eight years in Very Small Child Country, I'm feeling just about strong enough to take on the challenge of a makeover. What's more, I brought a client back to my house the other day and she didn't believe it was mine because it was so unkempt... well that was embarrassing. So I really, really have to do something about it now.

When I say makeover, of course, I'm not talking Ground Force. More like a slow, meandering, several-years-long process of improvements, at the end of which I hope I shall have a garden which better reflects what I think a garden ought to be.