What a frustrating week or two.  A sunny day, the weeds calling, birds singing and me stuck indoors with a sprained ankle!  Still it will be alright for the Weekend.

Thirty years ago, in the dead of winter in real Pentyrch weather - very wet mizzly rain - we moved in to our dream house with two children - 2½ and 9 months.  The garden was not a priority.  So all the plants from Bristol went into Tesco bags outside the back door to sit and wait for spring.

Top soil at the back proved lovely except it had been put on top of the stones already in the garden.  Our house was one of the last to be built and the plot had been the builders' store.  So, to this day, we dig up bricks, milk bottles and brick ties.  The largest item we’ve found was an amount of tarmac and concrete – obviously at the end of the day, the mixer had to be emptied!  Some of it is still under the back lawn.  Bill and his mum spent many hours clearing the site - the builders used to leave a dumper truck on the road for us to fill every night.

The first job was to create a vegetable bed to grow raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, salad stuff and carrots, to name but a few.  Bill's cardboard discs to keep off the carrot root fly seemed to work, so we were away.

And then – the sheep visited us!  Yes, we lucky people had sheep in the garden - more than once.  We couldn't afford proper fencing and the Bovis wire and post proved useless at keeping anything out or in.

Eventually we sowed a lawn with three round beds in the front; lawned the side garden; with flowerbeds, terracing and walls at the back.  Over the years the back lawn has been the home of swing, slide, football goals, badminton and tennis courts, and is currently a golf-putting practice area. We've had a greenhouse, a caravan patio - and now have the caravan space, conservatory, and two patio areas.  It has been a resource base for my flower arranging.  Every Show (Malvern, Chelsea, Birmingham and Hampton Court) has found me, list in hand, searching for another plant I must have - or as Bill calls it - "counting leaves".

Mind you, I can count on one hand the number of times I've mowed the lawn, or dug up and dried bulbs, dahlias or geraniums - all Bill's jobs.

The garden looks very different now.  The lawns have been dug up in the front and the side.  A slate river helps to keep the slugs and snails off the hostas.  A malus and stipa take pride of place in the front beside a variegated griselina with a rose flower carpet through it.  There are also holes - since the beginning of the year we have taken out seven large shrubs - 20 years of growth was spoiling the structure.

The replanting has been fun – all those plants from the "caravan hole" have come into their own - you know, the ones we've had "for ages"!  There are geraniums and pinks to plant in bowls, troughs and pots to plant – I'll get my walking stick out and get going.

Come and visit us on the weekend of 5 and 6 July – come see the difference!