A third garden

'There are rich counsels in the trees.'

Herbert P Horne

The third garden is not ours. It is not in Dorset, nor Burgundy – it is in Brussels. It belongs to Matthew, Alice and Freddie, who love it very much but don't really have much time to give to caring for it.

This garden, quite unlike the other two, is on the edge of the city, where the houses give way to the beech woods that extend for miles to the south east of Brussels. The climate is continental and the soil very heavy. The structure of the garden is simple, with a lawn surrounded by established shrubs, roses and some box hedging.

The front of the house has a flourishing wisteria, which adds to its cottagey feel. This is very much a garden for early summer.

The classic recipe for an easy-to-maintain garden is a planting of shrubs and bulbs. But shrubs get quickly out of hand if not pruned, and wisteria, in particular, is famous for sending unwanted shoots into nearby gutters. Roses become straggly and misshapen if left to their own devices. As the akebia put on growth in the spring, it did its best to strangle the rhododendron and wegeila, resulting in some heavy detective work to liberate the bushes and a large pile of foliage to be put out as green waste.

The back of the house has some rather lurid orange walls enclosing the outdoor seating area and there are holes containing flowering plants. How the plants hang onto life I don't know, but in early summer they are looking pretty.

It's beyond my remit to improve the soil or replant, but it is possible to add colour by bringing extra plants as they arise from the gardens in England and France. The first additions were bulb lasagnes in terracotta pots planted in the autumn to start off the year

and snowdrops, primroses and violets, which will brighten the darker days of next spring.

I have experimented by putting Toscana strawberries into hanging baskets to hang on the house walls. Planting hanging baskets isn't something I have done before, but I am hoping for pretty flowers and delicious fruits flowing over the edge in a cascade – we'll see.

I'll leave the lawn mowing to the owners.