Sorting out your garden is like sorting out your wardrobe. Hidden among the piles of clothes you never wear – the once-loved skirt than no longer fits, the shoes that cost the earth and cripple you, and the heaps of unwearable bargains – there will be an elegant coat that needs taking in, a pair of boots that need reheeling and polishing and a perfect silk shirt that needs ironing. Often all you need is another view to resurrect your assets.

A fine pairing: Galway iris and stachys byzantina

It’s the same with your garden. Find the good pieces and revamp them. Take out the dead, the wayward and malformed growth and let the light through. If a plant isn’t working, move it, reduce it or take it out all together. It’s astonishing how often you end up with a huge pile of stuff you have taken out of a border, yet you seem to have more in it. This is because you have revealed the shape of plants and given them value.