Now I'm looking far more critically at plants on the bank with the suspicion that space - pure calm open airy space

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Now I'm looking far more critically at plants on the bank with the suspicion that space - pure, calm, open, airy space - would be better, in one or two other places, than the existing muddle. It's so dense, that growth on the bank now, so congested, that not enough plants come into the spotlight.The process started with the ceanothus that we tore out from the front of the bank to make more room for small plants and bulbs. But getting rid of the ceanothus also brought back into prominence the aralia behind it. I had always intended the aralia, a lovely Aralia elata 'Variegata', to be the key plant in this particular patch. The ceanothus (C thyrsiflorus var repens) was supposed to sprawl low in front of it. Instead, it reared up and up and completely dominated everything around it.The slow-growing aralia couldn't fight back fast enough. In winter, its framework is reduced to its few strange, stubby, upright stems.

But the ceanothus was evergreen and grew so fast that when the time came for the aralia's fabulous great pinnate leaves to unfold in April, there was nowhere for them to go. Now it is breathing easy, the 3ft leaves balanced out horizontally like the branches of a cedar.Making space, taking things out, need not be as wholesale as it has been with the 'Agnes' rose and the ceanothus Sometimes cutting out branches is enough. Lifting the canopy of trees by taking out one or two of the lowest branches is a surprisingly effective way of gaining more gardening room. This is what I need to do with the evergreen Portuguese laurel under which a big Decaisnea fargesii is growing.I wouldn't want to be without the laurel entirely. It stands on the boundary between us and our neighbour and provides useful cover. It also shelters our garden from the prevailing south-westerly winds.

But it is a dense tree, and the decaisnea tends to lean out from under it and wave its great leaves (pinnate leaves about 3ft long) over the lawn. Then the grass gives up.If we take out a few of the laurel's lowest branches so that it doesn't sit quite so heavily on the decaisnea's head, the decaisnea itself will feel that it can grow up into the vacuum that has been created, rather than reaching out over the lawn. The laurel branches could have been just cut back, rather than taken away entirely, but I don't think the effect would have been good. The unnatural truncation would have caught your eye and felt uncomfortable.The decaisnea itself needs cutting back, too. Left to itself it would make a big, multi-stemmed shrub at least 15ft tall and wide. But like many multi-stemmed shrubs (cotoneaster, philadelphus, etc) it can easily be kept at a more manageable size if you regularly take out one or two old stems each year.I won't do that now.