The moment had arrived, my designer presented the plan to me – I’m not sure who was the more anxious.  She wanted to know that she’d interpreted my ideas correctly, and I wanted to see how she was planning to transform my garden.  Fortunately we were both happy, in fact I was totally taken aback by how she’d envisaged the space, and that in my view is the benefit of bringing in outside help, I was just too close to it to have the objectivity that was required.  I knew what was wrong, the lawn had to go – on the other hand she could see that with the lawn removed, and the trellis taken away I had a lot of space to play with.  It was a narrow space there was no changing that but techniques to give a sense of width, to slow down the journey from one end of the garden to the other could be called upon, and a transformation achieved.