Well, is the whole kitchen is included in these dimensions (i.e. the part which is not on the photo?) ?? As the utility room on the photo is about 2.20 m width the max. What room's door is the one on the right? Do not you want to remove the cupboards and start from scratch or just as little hassle as possible?

Thank you - it’s already been dug out and I’ve added a mix of crazy paving down the centre with a large pot in the middle (with a cordyline in) and plum slate chippings for now. I’m really hoping that any bluebells can’t get through the 2 layers of heavy duty weed barrier and the stones, ha ha. If they do then I can just pull the sheets back and remove them. Yes there is a budlea by the canopy and I keep trimming it down so it stays fairly short for now until I find an alternative plant to put there that’s not so tall and likes sun (evergreen preferably) The left side with the large cordyline (seems to be dying off - is this normal in autumn??) has had a good clear out and I’ve also planted a palm and red cordyline type bush along with some other tropical feeling evergreens. Seemed a shame to remove it right now.

Hi Jonathan - thanks! Unfortunately for height reasons I can't put a pergola up. Neighbours won't like it as our patio will already be 30cm above the lawn.  On the height of the surfaces, I wonder if I ought to just accept a higher worktop height. This will block the view of the garden a bit, but with a BBQ and maybe pizza oven in the kitchen area, the height will unavoidably be higher then the walls anyway. So a higher wall perhaps isn't a problem (and would look tidier when viewed from the garden anyway). Do you have any specific thoughts on the lighting options? Seems like an infinite set if options. I made the model in Sketchup with a plugin called vray. . Borrowed a friend's machine to do it.. I'm not sure I've got a great render from vray, but it was the default settings. Plenty of YouTube tutorials.if.interested, I'm no expert at all. Thanks

I would suggest Euonymus fortunei . It’s evergreen , can be trimmed back to form a ‘ wall ‘ of leaves and comes in various variegated shades . It’s a moderate grower so won’t take over .