Cutting the trees back at the right time of the year is a bit of an art, the trick is to leave them tall in the direction that the sun will be in for the next four to six months, the trouble is they grow so quickly.

We use large coconut chips on the flower beds to retain moisture and to add fibre into the ground, really large bags cost 80 baht each and we replenish about three times a year, it takes about fifteen bags to do all the beds once.

As discussed recently, we get garden water from the klong and our backup is a 15 metre well, I'd like to add a deep well this year, about 90 metres because of the rust that exists under 40 feet. If I was to do it over I'd forget about shallow wells and just go deep as possible. I'd also instal a 2 inch bearer pipe (the pipe from the pump that runs around the wall) and pump rather than the present 1 inch pipe. I spec'ed the system for only seven sprinkler heads and we now have thirteen hence pressure whilst operating multiple heads is an issue - the one inch pipe is reduced near the head down to half inch.

We're on ex-rice paddy land which means poor quality soil hence the coconut husk. But the ground also sinks each year, especially near the banks of the klong so we've added back some ten cubic metres of good quality soil this year and installed concrete barriers to stop ground slip, that was a workout and a half.

All our rainwater gutters feed into the klong which also serves as the disposal site for all garden waste...useful and then some.