Secret Gardens

I have an enduring interest in gardens. Well, I do when I think about it. Give me a book on garden design or talk to me about plants and I'm more than likely going to glaze over. But take me to one - be it the smallest nook or the grandest, most fancy affair - and I'm ever so happy. I think it started as a child. As may be unsurprising, I loved 'The Secret Garden' by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Tumbledown, part-abandoned gardens only known to a few seemed so exciting - satisfying in their suggestion of times past, the way that plants could reclaim once pristine ground. 
Our own garden is small. It's functional - erring over into looking pretty come summer, but...