Watering facilities are essential. This arrangement is ugly and a waste of plant space.

Spring 2017

Hose and watering can moved round the side of the house to the S alleyway, and pots put in the vacant space under the tap. Ultimately quite a big plant, perhaps a bamboo, can go here. The tap is not very conspicuous and doesn’t seem worth moving.

These are the beds after the contractors had finished. The bare soil had about 6″ of composted municipal green waste applied before planting.
On the gravel bed the chippings were scraped back and planting done through holes cut in the membrane underneath.