This area came to be thanks to my new neighbours. They moved in during the first lockdown and during those rare moments we were all out in our gardens we got chatting and I loved their idea so much (they're doing an orchard with meadow flowers and grasses and basically letting it go wild. I love it!), that I adapted it to work for us.

After clearing the whole space (lots of couch grass to deal with and many trips to the tip later) I got to planting. I build a couple of steps to get into the area, put up a rose arch and direct sowed a lot of clover seeds.

So far it has three new trees in it, 2 cherry Stella and 1 plum Beauty (red flesh), 2 types of strawberries (honeyoye & marshmallow), 2 blueberry bushes (duke & pink lemonade), 2 types of raspberries (autumn red and autumn gold), elderflower (grown from cuttings), a thornless blackberry, 2 rambling roses (DA Generous Gardener) on the arch and a whole bunch of meadow/woodland flowers. Hardy geranium Rozanne, foxgloves and cornflowers. More to come and I can't wait to see this area develop into its full potential. The colour scheme for this area is blues and purples - hence the Cool Garden.

I'm also loving all the tulips that have come up this year and I hope more will pop up next year (planted loads but had loads eaten before they could emerge). One of the things I planted in this area is the very exciting saffron crocus and I'm pleased to say I had a decent harvest from them Autumn 2021. Saffron crocus are autumn flowering bulbs and a nice little pop of colour towards the later end of the season. I'm hoping they have started to naturalise and increase my yield this coming autumn.

This area will see the planting of various dahlias, gladioli, cosmos and verbena this year. They'll have to grow a little bit bigger before I can plant them out but i'm positive the colour display of the 'Cool Garden' will be beautiful.