As a bit of an introvert, I’ve always enjoyed time to myself – a night in on my own for some pampering, an hour with a good book, even just sifting through my thoughts on the evening commute. I think that’s the thing I found most difficult about adjusting to maternity leave and being a mum – it’s so much more difficult to find time for yourself and your own thoughts when you’re kept company by a little being all day long (and a good part of the night too for that matter!)

We moved into our house in October and Max was born in the April, so I think it’s fair to say that we didn’t have much time to focus on the garden that first year. With the bulk of the work in the house complete and Max a little bit older, spending time in the garden this year has been my ‘me’ time – whether it’s a spot of weeding or planning and creating a new border, it’s a chance to reflect on the week’s events, to make plans for the future, and to create something beautiful in the process.

It’s been a steep learning curve picking up the gardening basics – learning about our soil, what’s good to plant in sun, what’s good to plant in shade, what’s that awful weed that keeps poking up (fyi – horsetail, it’s a nightmare, but we’ve come to realise that there is no getting rid of it, it’s just something that we need to ‘manage’). The garden was originally divided into two parts - the half closest to the house dominated by shrubs and the back left to become overrun by crocosmia (non-flowering due to the overcrowding). My taste is for a lot more in the way of blooms, and lots of texture provided by grasses. I’ve already redesigned three borders with lots of flowering beauties including hydrangeas, peonies, lupins, roses, allium, lavender, echinacea, and a tonne of stipa tenuissima, and by this time next year I hope to have the whole of the garden looking more to my taste. It’s all beginning to grow in now and I can’t wait to see what it looks like by the time we hit next spring.