Up and down the garden path. The Telegraph Hill Open Gardens took place a couple of weekends ago with about a hundred visitors coming through the door. A number of people commented that the garden feels like a woodland path or clearing.
 In a sense it's a contradiction in terms to speak of designing a garden to be "natural" but the woodland theme does underpin the planting I've done. One of my favourite expressions is "necessity is the mother of invention". The garden is shady by virtue of the surrounding houses and mature trees and gets increasingly so as the leaves fill in the tree canopy from late spring through to autumn.
 Every part of the garden gets some sun during the course of the day but the plants that thrive are for the most part ones whose natural habitat is woodland or the woodland edge or hedgerow. Failures I've had generally come from planting something that I know needs more sun but I kid myself it might be alright and sure enough it isn't.
 The views in the photo above should perhaps be part 3 of the "free plants" theme of recent entries. The top photo follows the garden path away from the house where it is bordered at this time of year by big clumps of Geranium x oxonianum. There used to be a few small clumps in the garden but I've made use of their capacity to increase in size rapidly, seed freely and divide easily.
 The other photo follows the path from the other end looking towards the house. Various people asked me what the clumps of grasses are that edge this section of the path and actually I don't know. Another self-seeder they appear all over the shadier areas and I am in the habit of transplanting them to the sides of the path to make a feature of them.
 I am happy to report that all small children who visited behaved in exactly the same way. They immediately charged up the path and began searching for interesting things at the back- big sticks, treasure, creepy crawlies etc. This is exactly what I would have done at their age and still do in a way.