Thanks for that Janet.

That clearing was an area of about 3/4 acre of derelict woodland/garden
- been used as a dump for years (not by me). To add insult to injury,
previous gardeners had used lead mine waste - fine gravel for the paths
and in places like on the top part of the cleared site it had washed
off and made little 'deltas', we had to clear that and replace it with
topsoil. So we have made for ourselves the dream job of planning and
planting what is the only really sunny area in the garden. One of the
sunniest borders will be a bit after the style of those German and
Dutch 'Prairie' type planting, a-la Piet Oudolph (Jan's doing most of
the planning and reasearch for that0. The beds on the edge of the
woodland are mine for a woodland edge planting with trees shrubs and
lots of naturalised bulbs etc.The big tree being taken down in pieces
was a Sycamore on the bottom corner of the cleared plot, it had started
to go in the middle about halfway up and half the crown was going to
fall on powerlines behind it and possibly onto our cottage. Still sorry
to see it go tho'. That wasn't us taking it down, they are a team of
tree surgeons hired for the job. The other big tree coming down was
yours truly doing the felling at the top of the Camellia Walk: removing
that and a large Yew made a big area of semi darkness into nice dappled
shade for finishing the Camellia Walk planting. That's me with the
helmet under my arm doing a post felling debriefing with Phil. What we
did with the Camellias, because it's not *really* a money mine here, we
bought 3 plants of each of about 50 varieties about 5 years ago and
deliberately planted them too close together - like 3 where we really
only need one in the long run. We now have a stock of well grown plants
to move to other parts of the garden as it develops. Been doing some of
that today and last week. Most of what goes into this garden is work -
there's only 3 of us but I feel very strongly that it's the kind of
place that would be ruined if you suddenly threw loads of cash at it.