Hey everyone! Good to hear from you all again. We have 2 wks before we go back to school. It's been a busy summer but good. My boy (14) is in marching band and they've been practicing all summer for the fall football games. He is worn out. My girl has been playing with friends and is doing a bit of a room redo herself (she is 10). Nice to see you all are well. We took a weekend a bit ago to Chincoteague VA and it was great! Hopping over to visit the corridor thread now.

Hello folks! I haven't disappeared, just had whooping cough (yes, seriously!) with a garnish of gastric flu and torn muscles from coughing fits. So that has severely impeded our efforts (hubby's had it too, and it lasts around 3mths so we're not out of the woods yet!) with our new house (which I now describe as semi-derelict before we bought it) and so had no time/mental energy to properly get updated on what's been happening with you guys. Truth be told, I've started reading a few times & either got interrupted (mummy-ness) or fallen asleep, without finishing. I've missed this, but u guys, esp Monica & RoRo have been in my thoughts. Where to start?! I think I've taken in all that's happened in this thread since I went AWOL but might have missed some finer points. Monica, I'm so sorry to hear what u'v been through, with the RTA & the cowboy tiling / wallpapering on top! (& work always picks worst times to intensify - I just started on a Task Force this week, when shd really still be on sick leave). I mean, a marker?! Seriously?! Isn't it common knowledge / common sense to use a lightly applied pencil? Sounds like u r doing best thing by looking at it as a learning experience. Still, he deserves an honest review somewhere. Anyway, onwards and upwards, I'll look at the lounge link when I've finished this post. BTW I LOVE your artwork. Vivacious, bright and deep - is there an insight there? ;-) And RoRo, wow you've got a lot on your plate! We've been so frustrated with being held back on our projects by health, but u have taken on a bigger scale of project altogether, sounds like it's verging on municipal! U guys inspire me. :-) Thinking of starting a thread on our living room, it's the most 'civilised' room of the house so far, but I didn't take the north-facing position into account when I decided on a colour scheme of turquoise, grey and lime. (Doh!) So far I've made some headway on a concept I'm excited by, but it needs some tweaking so it doesn't feel 'cold' with the blue tone of the natural light. Are you up for sharing some of your thoughts on this??? Hope so. :-)

Make sure your patio is large enough. I always like it to be at least a 4x4 metres, depending on the size of the garden and how you want to use it. Use string and wooden pegs to design your garden and see how it feels. Consider the view from the house into the garden too.

I like Sonia’s idea for an obelisk and a climber. The winter flowering jasmine might be nice and give you some winter colour ( p.s. I’m no good at remembering the Latin names:)). Alternatively I thought some flowering spikes might look interesting with the natural looking mix, so something like perennial foxgloves, verbascum, acanthus (think there’s an evergreen variety of this), penstemon etc. For spring flowering you also look at Aquilegia, some of the vulgaris varieties can grow quite tall (up to 1m). They do have a tendency to self seed everywhere tho but easily controlled and very pretty when in flower. I think an evergreen of some sort would look good and anchor the rest of the planting, something that’s easily controlled such as osmanthus holly olive, yew, or the upright euonymus, all slow growing and won’t be fussed about being clipped.