Every gardener in this country has to learn to live with, adapt to, and then enjoy, the changes that prevail through the seasons each year. In our zone, the gardening season can range from March to November, but in a bad year - minus a couple of months or more. The change of colours, patterns, appearances, and atmosphere, in the garden, as the growing season advances, can provide a pleasure that combines anticipation, surprise, and excitement. (O.K. I left out the bad parts: disappointment and frustration from cold damage, draughts and other bad stuff.) Such seasonal changes can be incorporated into garden designs as a dynamic element of the fourth dimension (time) by experienced gardeners. In fact, most gardeners who attempt to compose their garden beds such that the same beds look good, spring through to autumn, are doing just that.

Although we have not seriously tried, here is one of our feeble attempts in one area of our garden:

Winter .....Spring....

Summer....Autumn.....


The buttons on the left can take you for a quick tour of our garden through the seasons. Bear in mind that blooming seasons for each plant can vary by a few weeks, depending on the actual time of transition from winter to spring for that year.

We know too much and feel too little. At least we feel too little about those creative emotions from which a good life springs.

Bertrand Russell