How to sum up the garden in three words? Verdant, scented, bountiful? Overgrown, haphazard, defensive? Both combinations are accurate. The new Harlow Carr rose in its planter looks and smells lovely. Tiger lilies, jasmine and honeysuckle perfume the evening air. I can’t keep up with harvesting gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries. (I’m almost glad the wood pigeons got the unnetted redcurrants last month.) I’m eating new potatoes and mangetout peas. The purple clematis is finally in its pomp, and the astrantias have come up white this year. We have been (ahem) “fortunate” enough to have had plenty of rain, so everything looks happy.

But . . .

Keeping on top of pests is never-ending: soft fruit is netted against magpies, wood pigeons (boo hiss) and blackbirds, and I’ve tried to make vegetable beds into cat minefields. Plus some more cat scarers. Parts of the garden need a flame-thrower or machete: yesterday I hoed a patch of ground elder at the base of the hedge, and I daren’t go down to the bottom of the garden for fear of finding more to do.