I’ve gardened for as long as I can remember.  From scattering seeds and popping cuttings into random patches of ground in various childhood gardens to growing vegetables in pots on a London rooftop, it was only a matter of time before I felt the need to grow anything and everything on a larger scale.  

Before that could happen, I seemed to spend far too long in classrooms, libraries and offices.  All good stuff that helped shape me, whether it was studying foreign languages, working at home and abroad as a lawyer or being paid to watch opera from the wings six nights a week.  Those non-gardening years ultimately made a complete change of direction possible at a relatively young age.

And now it’s gardening that fills almost all of my time.  With three acres to tend in Spain and a small courtyard garden in the north of England, I always seem to be either hacking, planting or weeding.  Unless I’m visiting someone else’s garden when I try to refrain from all that.