“I open the greenhouse before breakfast and check the trays by the door. Those dry first. If it has rained all night, I leave the watering and tie up the taller plants instead. Most mornings a neighbour comes for a few seedlings. We stand there talking, and I carry on working.

In the afternoon I sort the empty pots and wash the trays. I keep the cracked ones for carrying things. When someone tells me their plants have taken, I ask where they put them and how often they watered. I remember those details the next time they come, especially if they are trying something new.

There is a low table just inside the door where I put the seedlings that need watching. I used to arrange everything by size, because it looked tidy. Now the thirsty ones stand together and the ones that dislike a draught stay further back. It is a less impressive arrangement, perhaps, but it saves me walking from one end of the greenhouse to the other with a watering can. My knees appreciate that more than a visitor appreciates a straight row.

I write the names on small pieces of plastic cut from old containers. By the end of the season the writing has usually faded. I tell myself I will use a better pen next year. Sometimes I recognise a plant by a leaf before I can read its label; sometimes I have to wait. There is no use pretending you remember everything. A notebook helps, especially when the same mistake starts looking like a new idea.

What the morning needs

A neighbour brought her daughter one Saturday to choose something for their balcony. The girl wanted the smallest plant on the table. Her mother kept pointing to a larger one, already carrying flowers, but she had made up her mind. We found an old pot that fitted it. A few weeks later they came past with a photograph on a telephone. I could hardly see the plant for the girl holding it up to the camera. That was a good visit.

People often ask what they should grow, as if there were a right answer I could give without seeing their home. I ask where the light falls and who will remember the watering. If somebody is away all day, I do not send them home with something that needs attention every few hours. It is better to enjoy one pot than feel guilty about six. A plant has to find a place in the life you already have.

When it rains, I move the chair beneath the part of the roof that does not drip and work on the smaller jobs. There are ties to loosen, dry leaves to collect, pots to wash. Once, a whole morning went on fixing a door that would not close properly. Nobody would call that gardening in a photograph. But you cannot keep making new things without taking care of the old things that hold them up.

Something to bring back

My own garden has corners I never finish. Behind the shed there is a patch I mean to clear, and beside the steps there are three pots waiting for a better position. I used to apologise for these things when people visited. Now I let them see it. Most people are relieved. They have unfinished corners too, and it is easier to talk when nobody is pretending that every day ends with all the work done.

In the evening I make one more round before going indoors. The light is lower then and I notice things I walked past all morning: a stem leaning towards the doorway, a fresh leaf, a snail beneath the rim of a pot. I move what needs moving and leave the rest until tomorrow. When someone returns after a few months, we walk the same little route together. A garden is easier to understand when you return to it.

Not everybody comes to buy something. A woman who moved away brings me empty pots whenever she visits her family. We put them beside the door and talk about her new kitchen window. I have never seen that window, but I have been choosing plants for it in my head for years.”