Lynn McCrossan: ‘So we made a pact not to act in haste’

ARRIVING at the hugely enjoyable Gardening Scotland Show last Friday with my Dad and my youngest, I was full of good intentions to look but not touch.

I was definitely not going to leave laden with plants that caught my eye simply because they look pretty but that I have a) no idea where to put them or b) no idea what conditions they need to flourish. (Not that I can lay claim to anything much flourishing in our garden – unless it belongs to the dandelion family.) So we made a pact not to act in haste.

Fifteen minutes later we are both lugging leafy bags and an assortment of garden necessities that clearly neither of us can live without, while juggling the balloon on a stick someone gave my daughter and trying not to injure anyone with her new whirly buzzy bee on a much sharper than I had realised metal stalk.

Back home I’m certain the new plants will fill a space occupied by an overgrown shrub that blocks light to a window, so I rip it out. (Well, I got someone else to rip it out, but I did shout a few words of encouragement.) With hindsight, it may not have been one of my better ideas. The cleared space is much bigger than I imagined and my new plants are lost in a sea of soil. Removing the huge shrub also exposed all the broken bits of fence behind it, which I now need to replace. That whole not acting in haste thing really worked out well.