The Suffolk garden is now in its 6th season – I can hardly believe so many years have passed – so much has happened in that time. I have worked at trying to understand the plants and how they grow, and which combinations work and which do not. And along the way I have ‘discovered’ Piet Oudolf. This post is about the blindingly obvious, but for beginners it just takes time to understand what is obvious to the more experienced gardener.

I have a narrow bed at the back of the house which is in the shade of a north-facing wall, and with rubble and concrete not far below the surface. The soil is clay. Not a promising site! The plants clearly needed to be hardy, fairly shallow-rooting, and tolerant of shade and lower temperatures. I have finally found a combination which works and which looks good at most times of the year: Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, Euphorbia Amygdaloides, Corydalis, Ajuga, Bergenias, and Euonymus.