Alliums unzipping in the Garden from Scratch

Perhaps it was the raspberry canes, lined up on the kitchen table, with ‘I Love You’ written on post-it notes. Or the handmade raised bed. Or a daily inspection of the garden at the end of work. Whatever the turning point, my husband has become a gardener, and last weekend he bought himself his first plant.

For weeks he has been gabbling on about Photinia, pointing out a particularly fine specimen in someone else’s garden, and asking me how tall, wide and fast they grow. And then he bought one. Photinia are manly plants, he tells me. They have a presence: there is nothing fluffy or vague about them. The same goes for magnolias, with their bold flowers you could drink wine from. Nothing indefinite about them.

While I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t making some attempt to garden, Toby cannot remember a time when he didn’t adore cricket. His mother is a formidable gardener, and keeps the family supplied with homegrown veg for most of the year. Meanwhile Toby has always been more concerned with landing a cricket ball amongst the parsnips rather than growing them. And as someone who regularly works a 100-hour week, he hardly has the time to sow a green manure or gaze lovingly at a tulip.

But marriage does strange things to you. After all, we got engaged under my favourite tree (an ancient, rambling mulberry which was fruiting at the time). It was only a matter of time really before Toby began to see the wonder of a garden: the roses celebrating spring with new scarlet leaves; the alliums unzipping their coats, and peas scrambling up trellises.

And there’s more to come. You see, I’ve planned the garden this year with a reluctant gardener in mind. There will be ‘Dill’s Atlantic Giant’ pumpkins, sunflowers, and other ‘wow’ plants to excite enthusiasm. And a Photinia.