A late summer tour of my 83 year old Mum's garden

I'm up at Mum and Dad's for a few days so Googie and I grabbed a moment between rain showers for a quick tour of her garden late summer.

This is a long, triangular garden, nearly an acre in size, which Googie designed twenty five years ago so that she could slowly abandon sections to go wild as she became too old to garden it.

So far she's not abandoned a square inch, but the design tips she gives here are useful for all with gardens they like to section off to make them look bigger, to give people a view to entice a stroll, and to make sure there's room for friends and family (hedgehogs are considered both in this garden and have a much loved house of their own.)

With tips for garden design, how to treat bee stings, how to make a fig tree bear even this far north (here we are zone 7) how to frame the veg patch, what not to mind about your tropaeolum speciosum and as always featuring shrubs with no name on account of long lost labels, this is a typical tour of Googie's garden.

We are in a hurry - it might rain at any moment - so apologies if the sound is ever bad - Googie is ruthless about turning her back and walking on to the next spot of interest. Plus it's WINDY!