And so, the end is near… 

 “Thank goodness for that!” I hear some mutter on the back row.

 Winter put pay to the Under Gardener working in the quagmire, or so he said, and anyway, there was football and rugby to watch. Did I mention that was his only requirement for the garden was to have sufficient grass to have a goal to play football with our football hating, and by then at university, son? I suppose the neighbours should be grateful he didn’t want rugby posts! Nine or ten months in, exactly when is lost in the mists of time, construction resumed and I went on another plant buying frenzy, yet again underestimating how long construction would take. The Under Gardener is very clever and cut back the decking by 1 metre, but you would never know. He thus revealed many more 2 ft cubes of the highest quality concrete. They filled one of the four skips of concrete we removed from our very small garden. The hideously rusty tin shed/cupboard thing was replaced with a lovely turquoise water feature planted in one of those ready-made plastic water feature things. The ornamental orange cement mixer was found a new home; no, surprisingly enough, I didn’t want to keep it as a feature – mainly because I was forbidden from growing anything on it or over it – a purple flowering clematis would have contrasted nicely, in my opinion. Runner beans were planted on the trellis, rainbow chard and potatoes in the veg patch along with a pillar apple tree, which isn’t very pillary because the cat loved it too much and rubbed off the leading bud. I have yet to master pruning – no blossom this year – do they flower on last year’s growth; did I mis-read the RHS instructions? 

 What have I learnt along the way – firstly, level and compact the earth more meticulously before seeding a lawn, it’s a bit of a death trap; secondly, when it comes to building gardens, the good old engineering principle of doubling the time you think will take should be multiple by 20 and finally, pay at least a little heed to the final size of plants on their labels – I have had to find new homes for some particularly vigorous specimens. 

 It has been interesting reflecting on our garden make-over, it transpires that the adventure began not five years ago, but seven, it was the kitchen that started five years ago – that took a year too – a whole other story! 

 So now I have a garden with which I am absolutely delighted. It gives me endless pleasure; a green oasis and I wouldn’t change a thing with my design. It would be extremely hard to have to move house. One year later than I had envisioned, we had a garden warming party which, happily, also coincided with my birthday. As the plaque my next door neighbours gave me on that beautiful, sunny, summer afternoon says: A garden is a thing of beauty and a job for ever.