When I came to this house, the garden was total wilderness, a rough lawn that was more like a field than a lawn, a row of leylandaii already twenty feet tall and growing fast and a jungle beyond.

I can't claim a manicured, perfect space now but I can claim a huge improvement. The leylandaii are gone, the wilderness is now the vegetable garden and the domain of the hens and the lawn is now punctuated by planting, both long-term trees, shrubs and herbacious plants as well as annuals (preferably ones that re-seed themselves every year).

This hebe was actually here when I moved in, it's not grown much but there are always loads of flowers on it each year.