We can’t keep ripping up and starting again just because something offends our aesthetic sensibilities

I visit many beautiful, large gardens as part of my job, but on these trips I travel with an unwanted companion – the green-eyed monster. “Oh,” he sighs, “imagine owning that.” Then I come home to my new garden, with its huge patio and wall made of faux yellow Cotswold stone in concrete (so in tune with Welsh grey slate). To add to the injury, there are a few random Italianate balustrades and some strange ingresses, and beneath all this is rubble spilling out in every direction. Oh, to have it all removed and replace it with a sweet, wooden greenhouse with finials and cold frames.

It’s not happening – not only because of finances, but because all that rubble and concrete goes to landfill (with environmental transport costs, too). We can’t keep ripping up and starting again just because something offends our aesthetic sensibilities.

I do not want to look at it, but what should I do with it all? My wife has her eyes on the balustrades as she has plans for a funny bench; so, frankly, they are hers. Whether the bench remains funny enough to stay is another matter. The Cotswold concrete wall is retaining a Welsh hillside, so it’s not coming down, but it can be softened.

It’s a south-facing wall, so there are plenty of options. But as it comes only to shoulder height, many of the obvious choices – shrubs with straight backs for training against hard surfaces, such as the silk tassels of Garrya elliptica “James Roof”; the holly leaf-like Itea ilicifolia, with its vanilla-scented catkin-like green flowers; or the bird-loving berries of Pyracantha “Golden Charmer” or P. “Saphyr Jaune” – are too tall.

However, a brick here or there can be prized out with care and a chisel, without it tumbling down. Then I can extract a planting hole, fill it with compost, and into that nestle things that aren’t fazed by growing vertically in odd spots.

As the wall basks in sunlight, I want prostrate rosemary, Salvia rosmarinus “Prostrate Group”. I can grow some on top and one or two down the sides so I have a heavenly scented wall to brush up against.

For the shadier corners, any of the trailing campanulas – C. cochlearifolia, C. garganica, C. portenschlagiana, and C. poscharskyana (pictured) – would work. The latter two are rather delicious, as the flowers and young greens are edible. I may also be able to get lady’s mantle, Alchemilla mollis, to take. Or its pretty, daintier cousin, Alchemilla alpina, which will love the free-draining hillside conditions.

Another shade lover, particularly if your wall is damp, is the ivy-leaved toadflax, Cymbalaria muralis. It’s a well-known, widespread wildflower of old walls. It has the added benefit of the leaves being edible – they have a flavour not unlike watercress. Much of the rest of the wall can be hidden with pots of various heights and with luck, one day, eBay will throw up that perfect wooden greenhouse with finials, and the green-eyed monster will be silenced.