After being alerted by our neighbour to the fact that the ivy I’ve allowed to grow like a small hedge was seriously affecting the integrity of the fence, we had no choice but to remove it – but unfortunately it was too late, the fence was in a very poor state and has had to be replaced – but the gap in planting is very hard on my eyes!

Back in May for our daughter Sophie’s 30th, the fence was covered in a thick ivy screen

The new fence is neat and tidy, but in addition to the bareness, there was some trampling over of the plants in the border and generally some remedial work was required.

We’ve planted a couple of photonia ‘Red Robin”s, at the back of the border, which will hopefully knit in with the laurels and provide a colourful back drop, but in the meantime, I decided to try and detract attention away from the bare fence with architectural plants and plenty of hot colour, it’s really a temporary fix, next spring we’re going to do some serious re-design of the planting in this part of the garden, it’s rather lost its way.

The banana and cannas have added some structure to the border