After slipping on my gloves, I begin to assess the bush in front of me. There are no signs of leaf rust or aphids. Even so, I’ll give them a feed when I’m done. From my own experience and copious reading on the topic, I know it’s better to keep plants healthy than try to treat them once a disease or pest appears. Intervention is never as successful as prevention.

I bought myself this property complete with its blank canvas back garden for my thirtieth birthday. The house ticked all of my boxes for a first-home purchase and was only slightly more than I’d budgeted for. It was close enough to work I could be there in less than twenty minutes, had three bedrooms (one spare, one for an office), was positioned well for sun (the back porch, kitchen and my bedroom receive a great deal – almost too much in the summertime). And it had a garden, or in this case an area I could turn into a garden. It was several months after I’d moved in before I admitted to myself the back garden the previous owners had created was almost identical to the one I’d grown up with: grass and a hedge circumnavigating the boundary. No plants, no colour, no beauty.

A man came with a digger the day after I moved in and tore out the hedge. He also dug up half the grass. My friends were horrified.

“Why do you want to turn all of this into garden? You’re creating more work for yourself. Don’t you work enough already?”

I told them it had been my dream to have a beautiful garden. I didn’t tell them about Grammy Rose, my mother’s mother, who I went to stay with for a few weeks while Mum was in hospital. I didn’t even know who the elderly woman was when she turned up on our doorstep the day after Mum left in an ambulance. I was fifteen years old; my brothers had grown up and moved out by that point. I was the only one at home when I opened the door and she told me she was my grandmother. She pulled me into a bear hug, cried giant tears and told me how much she’d missed me.

Apparently, Mum and I had spent several months living with Grammy Rose after I was born. Mum needed help and Dad thought we’d be better off there till I was at least sleeping through the night. Who knows what happened to my brothers; I couldn’t imagine Dad stayed home to look after them, but William was only five – too young, surely, to fend for himself.