Welcome to our garden in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in the heart of the English Cotswolds which has a high number of well known gardens (mostly on a rather different scale to ours!). We are fortunate in that, although we have no front driveway - just a small gate, with a narrow front and side garden - we are in a bend in the road giving us a larger space at the rear. We open the garden in late June and July under the National Gardens Scheme and so are able to share our passion for plants with others, and also raise money for good causes (we don't feel so bad then about taking in more and more plants!).

Daylilies have become a particular addiction (now around the 400+ mark) and we are doing our best to encourage others in the UK to grow them. We are members of the British Hosta & Hemerocallis Society (I am Joint Publicity Officer - Hemerocallis) and have had so much support and kindness from other members, especially those with nurseries. I am also a member of the AHS, and always look forward to their Bulletins and also the Eureka Daylily Guide to help me through January! Our daylilies were filmed in July 2007 (fortunately 2 days before the great rain storms) by BBC TV Gardeners' World, though the clip has not yet been shown.

Shade is in short supply, so hostas have to be confined to containers at the side of the house, and we now have only token strips of lawn because of the growing numbers of daylilies! We also love roses, especially climbers and ramblers, and clematis, and these are accommodated on fencing around the garden, on arches, posts and wires along the paths, and obelisks in the borders - not much bare earth anywhere in the Summer! Grasses are another favourite, extending their beauty into Winter (if our playful cats allow them to stay upright that is). Some grasses seem happy to be tucked into the edges of paths - this is definitely a natural, rather than a formal garden, and we appreciate the fact that plants such as poppies, nigella, verbascums and onopordons seed themselves around very freely. We have two small pools in the back garden, much valued by frogs and dragonflies, and last year we introduced a small free-standing pond in the front garden which was quickly taken possession of.

Although we have a somewhat limited space, I try and introduce some new aspect each season so that the garden allows itself to develop. Necessary new fencing and structures are providing opportunities for 2008 - quite often, the garden itself will tell you what to do!

We love garden visitors and hope we may have the opportunity of welcoming some of you one day. Your comments are also welcome - you can email me, Sue Beck, at sjb@beck-hems.org.uk.