Work has temporarily shifted from the back garden and veg patch to a barren area at the bottom of the front garden where we’ll sow chalkland wildflowers as soon as possible. Clearing this patch is taking longer than anticipated (as usual) but we did manage to sow some flower and veg seeds in the greenhouse yesterday and take cuttings from last year’s pelargoniums which are growing like mad. The Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ (pictured), which we planted last June and has been flowering continuously ever since, is also a good candidate for cuttings. It’s such a good-value plant – evergreen, floriferous (great word), undemanding.

We squeeze our gardening in the gaps between work and family life – a quick circuit around the garden with a coffee is sometimes it. And this means that we generally divide the jobs: David likes to cut the hedges and the lawn (it’s the power tools…) and I love the planning and planting, the imagining and choosing of shape and colour. And pruning, I love pruning. But occasionally we do have to work around each other when there are jobs we both want to do. And sometimes we tell each other how it should be done (we’ve both read the books, been on courses!).  Some couples have their own areas of the garden that they tend separately; others have specific jobs. We opt for ‘discussion’ and compromise, and sharing some tasks and the enjoyment of the process. Collaboration is our aim.