Dog Wood

The East side of the garden, showing the top retaining wall.  You might spot the top of a huge rock protruding from the ground.  This was uncovered when the ground was being levelled, and it being too big to move, was kept as a feature.  Cornwall experiences quite a lot of rainfall, especially January/February/March time, and the area directly in front of the retaining wall sometimes looks like a garden pond!  

This picture shows the wall and the top of the rock.  It also shows the palm - more about that below.

The dogwoods were planted some 5 years ago, and seem to have no problem with their 'feet' being in soggy ground for a large part of the year.  They are very happy, and I have to cut them back each year to stop them growing too tall and obscuring the colourful plants that will be planted on top of the wall, between the row of conifers.

The variety is Alba 'Sibirica' and these plants with their eye-catching stems, provide winter colour.  It is said that they should be hard pruned in Spring, but we have not had good displays when they flower, so this year I am going to leave them to see what happens, because they have flowered beautifully in the past. The foliage is a lovely rich green, and the flowers are white.

At the rear of the garden, there used to be a row of leylandii, and these had to be removed because they were blocking too much light to a property behind.  We wanted a screen, so planted the bamboo, again, around 5 years ago.  It has taken off well and created an effective screen.  A criticism of bamboo is that it spreads, but this section is fronted by a gravel bed and it is quite simple to remove any shoots that pop up in the gravel. 

The palm as it is now!  It has thrived since it was planted in 2013, and provides a tropical touch to the garden.  Its large clusters of flowers give off a really strong perfume, and small birds enjoy it as a roosting spot.  It is a Cordyline australis.