I used to think our garden at Sandhurst was a great big space but relative to this garden it was tiny. You could certainly fit it three times into this one and possibly four times so this really is a very big space indeed.

The great thing is that the ‘bones’ are all there. Like I have said before, once upon a long ago there was a really enthusiastic and visionary gardener here who invested a lot of time and effort into building the ‘room’ structure of the garden as I see it today.

While I was sorting out books the other day, trying to get some sense of order into the house, I came across my Sandhurst garden diary – this diary thing has been a part of my life for yonks and yonks. It’s actually a wonderful record of the garden there, before it fell to pieces in my ‘bad days’, when I was working 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week and struggling with two dogs and four hens who seemed determined to destroy all in their path. I pulled it back a long way from the lowest point with DMs help but I never managed to recover it totally because, despite my best efforts, I was still working long, long hours and away for a substantial part of the time, add to that the ‘new interest’ in Cornwall and it was all a bit of a struggle there to be honest.

Anyway, I loved that look back so much, I decided to start a garden diary here though I can’t start from the beginning as I have already started to make some changes. Despite this, assuming good weather, I’m going to take a series of ‘layout shots’ over this weekend so I can see the main features and structure as it stands in our first year here.

Today I’ve been to Rosemoor with my folks, close to the start of my long journey up-country to photograph Neil and Simon’s Civil Partnership ceremony. Rosemoor is the RHS’s South West garden though I’ve never been there before, despite being a member for more than fifteen years.

What an inspiration that place is – and especially as much of it has been built from scratch in ten or fifteen years. To my eye, it’s much more ‘real’ than Wisley, their main gardens near our old home in Sandhurst and I loved it all the better for that.

I came away with a memory card full of photos of plant names – the weather wasn’t conducive to getting great shots of plants but the thrill those herbaceous borders and beds have placed in my heart – well, let’s say if in ten years I have borders that are 1/10 as good, then I will be eternally grateful for today.

My main learnings – firstly a practical point – a lot of herbaceous plants need support – I am going online to find plant supports later! Secondly, you need to think big – it may seem like a great idea to ‘spread your money’ by buying one specimen of a number of different plants in a trip to the nursery but unless you have lots of spare time to propagate them, then it’s better to buy 3 or 5 of the same thing! The key for me was seeing great drifts of agapanthus or veronica or whatever. So, my new policy is slowly, slowly, one new species at a time.

We didn’t have a lot of time and as I’ve said, the weather was not good for photography but as we came to the end of our trip around the gardens, we came across this ‘installation’ as DM would put it. I love the way the stone looks soft and yielding while the planting looks hard and sharp, yet quite the reverse is true. It gives life to the statues although I find the ‘hard stare’ of the girl’s gaze at the bird somewhat disturbing. That too seems hard rather than soft. What I have seen though is that gardens are often better homes to plants when they rub shoulders with other things…..

So, I found myself clutching a book on garden mosaics to my chest when I was in their shop and surprisingly or otherwise, it ended up mine, after a short tussle with a bit of plastic! I now have plans for a whole range of ‘art’ in the garden to go with magnificent herbaceous borders! Suddenly it seems important to me to make a mark on this landscape.

Looking back on last year's shot, I am rather pleased with that one - both sentiments and shot!