Sometimes a very ordinary plant can be shaped and clipped into something quite special. It shows that if a plant is loved, cared for and manipulated, it can look very different from the way nature intended; not that nature's version of the same plant would be any less beautiful. But 'crazy clipping' brings fun and character to gardens.

Designing gardens and selling plants has taught us a little about the proportion of different types of plants contained in a garden. For example, a small or medium-sized suburban garden may have 2 or 3 trees, 10 or 12 shrubs, maybe a couple of bamboos, dozens of perennials, grasses and ferns and an infinite number of blades of grass. In other words, a garden will have a small number of big things and big number of small things.