Virginia Taylor - Author

I had to think for a while about the name of this section of the garden. The remains of a rudimentary chicken enclosure still remain beyond the secret path but the area was probably not touched for fifty years. We never thought we would get this done, but it is now weeded and planted with the purple plants, cuttings of artemesia and another plant with silver foliage. Yesterday, we added acanthus, because it is an old plant that would have been popular 160 years ago, and a swathe of English violets, because of Davenport's interest in the perfume industry. I hope it will remain this way, very plain, and relying on colour groups.

I must admit that I never thought I would get this area weeded. Quite a number of times I had friends who came and helped but we could never get it finished and it all grew back by the next year. It was my dream to see this part of the garden looking civilised because it shows from the road and gave a bad impression to people walking past, who think this area is a wilderness. This is how it looked before we started. There was a huge heap of building rubbish, old clay soil, broken bricks and stones piled high with cuttings no one had bothered to move. You can see here that the cottage garden is not yet developed.

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First my sister, Robyn, and her husband, Steve, and I tossed and sorted the bricks and stones, many of which I used for borders around the rest of the garden. We broke up the branches and disposed of them. Then we threw all the awful builders' soil all around, anywhere we could find a dip.
In the years after this, it was all absorbed into the garden. We had a sloped area and the weeds and periwinkle continued to grow. The next year, a couple of friends, Thea and David, came from Melbourne and stayed with me, and they came to the garden to help me, and pulled up a million periwinkle runners. At least half grew back by the next year, but much more spindly and weaker.That was about three years ago.
This year, I've had a lovely garden helper, Noel, an Irish comedian, who is pretty serious about pulling up periwinkle. He has worked for weeks on this and today we finished! It's now all clear and shaped. Next week I will plant it all out with violets.
​I want it to to be a discreet and shady place.  I planted silver bushes all around the pear tree and purple things (my plant knowledge is hopeless but I'm good with colours) running down the slope. I hope by summer it looks stunning but I'm an optimist. It will probably take a year.
So, this completes my secret way through from the marquee pad path, to the olive grove. It's a very curvaceous path and can't be photographed in one go. The photos below show the development.

Everything to the right of the photo has been removed. The twisted old wire has now gone and a very twisty path runs through. The downhill side (which you can't see here) will possibly not be developed but 'we'll see.'

I kept weeding and making a shape. It's rather hilly there. We planted Agapanthus and Clivea as a border. You can see the beginning of the purple plants and perhaps an idea of the silver ones. Below is how it looks today. You can see all the way through to the olive grove. As I said above, I'll need to do some planting but the shape is the thing. Once it is there, all is right in the world.