I grew up watching Beechgrove Garden and Gardeners’ World on the telly. The arrival of seed catalogues through the letterbox meant I could pour over stunning pictures of flowers, loving their colours, variety and beauty.

Only when I look back now do I realise how much of an impact these, and many other, influences from my childhood have shaped me.

I do love a flower!

Over the years I have continued to watch these long-running television programmes, admittedly not every week. Having suffered from migraines, I find the calm and beauty of them help me when I am at the stage of beginning to get going again.

During the summer I often sit down to watch and then think, I should be outside in the garden, not watching television! A few weeks ago, however, I ended up needing to recuperate from a bit of a fall and had the perfect excuse to sit down and watch the coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. My what an absolute treat!

The knowledge, creativity, obvious joy and laughter on display were so inspiring. I learnt a huge amount and took copious notes – of course! The weather played its part and I was inspired to pot on the seedlings I have; teasels, sunflowers, zinnias, nasturtiums and sweet peas. A job I always put off as I never think I have enough patience to do but then, as ever, one that fully absorbs me and forces me to take my time. Every year I think I will grow flowers to bring in to the house but then I find it too hard to cut them; they look so beautiful where they are!

It does make me laugh though, there I am busy sowing seeds, potting on, watering and trying to nurture the plants when Nature has her own way of deciding exactly what she wants to do. When I was in the greenhouse I must have dropped some of the foxglove seeds I collected one year and the number of plants that have popped up through the stones is hilarious.

I am particularly proud of this poppy which, again, I probably dropped the seed and it has survived and flowered really well since last autumn in a pot in the corner of the greenhouse. It looks so happy there, I am just going to leave it.

I never thought ours would be a garden good enough for any flower show but listening to the experts at Chelsea, I do feel an extra sense of pride. The plants I have chosen have always been for wildlife, we have piles of stones and sticks, bee hotels, a butterfly house, a small pond and a water bath for the birds – with stones for the bees to land on. We began our back garden from a patch of grass, twelve years ago and now it looks so much more mature.

One of the first presents I was given for it was a bird feeding station. It has taken time to encourage the birds to come but the diversity of birds we have had this year has been fabulous. Woodpeckers, goldfinches, great tits and blue tits, blackbirds, dunnets, sparrows, doves, robins, wood pigeons, jackdaws and crows! Fantastic! There is an area which backs on to a woodland and that has been left as a ‘woodland’ garden where we even saw a large hedgehog one year. So along with my rather rag tag, ‘naturalistic’ planting, I have to laugh at myself, for once I am feeling right on trend in the gardening world!

But the greatest gift of all is the sharing. Going around the garden I can point out plants my parents, family and friends have given us. Watching the birds flitting in and around the feeders and listening to the hum of the giant bumblebees, I feel incredibly lucky. Gardening has been a gift for me in so many ways, much like the gift I was given when those catalogues came through the door all those years ago.

Like a book, I would find it incredibly difficult to choose a favourite when it comes to flowers. Is there a particular flower you love and why?

I Am Reading

The Flower Book, A Bloom for Every Day of the Year. Gardeners’ World

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