I have seen my fair share of green belts today. Those are, for those that didn’t study GCSE Geography, the areas around cities that are not to be built in under any circumstance. They are to preserve the gap between city and green, between man and nature. The green works in this situation; nicely juxtaposed against both the city and the sky they are often geographically dynamic; rolling hills and swooping valleys. Greenery alone in a garden though? That’s crazy talk.

When you are dealing with a flat space which, despite our best efforts at making tiers, almost all residential gardens are then it is imperative that, without that geographical dynamism, that we break up the monotony of green in other, interesting ways. So we build things, we shift around plants but, crucially, we add other colours into the equation. Without that we would be left looking at something akin to a solid green wilderness.