Planning a new planting area

I can’t come up with a poetic term for this new part of the garden, so I welcome your suggestions. This is the narrow terrace that sits just above the duck pond garden. It has a mulberry in front, and a huge fifty foot chestnut tree above.

So I could call it the chestnut bank. It would be appropriate as the entire area is showered with the fruit every October during our main nut season.

And that means not just nuts, but the burrs as well. So far I have done little more than clear this bank and annually remove the weeds.

There are some wild garlic plants which produce some tasty stalks around now. But I think I can do better. But the constraint is the chestnut harvesting. Can I grow things here which won’t get in the way of the hands and knees and picking nuts?

I might just try and use it as an area for mass planting narcissus bulbs in future. You can never have enough of those fantastic flowers. They are scented in a vase, and are one of the plants that actually seems to bulk up in volume over time here. And who doesn’t want the joy of early flowers when you are still fiddling with seed sowing your flowers in the potting shed?

That will mean the flowers are up and over by June. And the huge shade of the tree above won’t cause any harm. It’s only January and I’m already plotting my end of year bulb planting. Winter nights in front of a blazing fire will do that.