The Little New House in the West, Carmarthenshire, UK

The Little New House in the West

Back garden

The back garden presented a real challenge. Small, and surrounded on three sides by rather ugly estate fencing, we decided the best approach was to create a quiet, green refuge. The planting shown here will grow over the next two seasons to completely cover the fences and to make a colourful, enclosed garden. Most of the bedding shrubs have been chosen for aromatic as well as visual appeal. We constructed cat-proof defences all round the garden to render it cat-safe, not only for our two horrors but also to keep alien cats at bay. The pergola, complete with Mr Rusty, is where I sit on sunny days.

Back garden, seen from the kitchen door

Back garden, showing back of house from the pergola. This view adequately demonstrates the need for imagination and vision in the early stages of creating a garden on a closely-packed modern estate.

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