John Highnam

Good day to you dear Judges at PGL and thank you for putting this competition on to stimulate us in ‘lock-down’ time, a really good idea.
We live in picture perfect cottage made of Blue Lias in Drayton village (348 souls), Langport South Somerset.
We believe the building would have been a long-house originally and is probably 400 + years old. The Blue Lias obviously influences wherever we build / design in the garden. We are rabid ‘greenies’ and so designed a ‘garden room’ extension to better view our garden which is slightly above the house floor level and gently slopes to the South. Therefore we terraced the near edge of the garden for best planting, have a brick pathway snaking around our lovely old Bramley Apple tree, which is the centre of the entire layout.
Borders all around the oval lawn have fruit trees and specimen tress / shrubs dotted about.
The vege plot occupies the last piece of garden beyond a trellised fence, with a potting shed and compost bins. We are pretty well self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables from May right around to March, always something to cut for the pot! We have an Apricot, Peach and Nectarine which are now more successful with global warming and are on the South facing wall.
Being a cottage garden nothing is really symmetrical and we allow plants to wander as they please, which pleases us and the insects too!