Hi Halcyon, looking good.
When we bought our house 50+ years ago it was like Sleeping Beauty's castle, brambles 6ft tall and a hedge nearly twice as big. Unloved for many years it took an army of friends to clear a wide enough path for us to be able to get our furniture to the front door.
Here's a couple of photos of parts of our gardens now.
The first is of my slice of heaven. It's where I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of years. So peaceful and hidden away from the world. It gets the sun from sunrise to sundown. Thankfully being in Manchester we get a fair bit of liquid sunshine which helps to keep it watered seeing as all of the plants are either in pots or in brick planters.
The second photo is the front section of our side garden, lots of shrubs to give us some privacy and some shade The tree is a Nana Catalpa biggest leaves going and branches that snap off in high winds but we love it.