Gardening is a fantastic way to spend your spare time. It's a pleasurable, healthy, productive and creative activity that can be tremendously enjoyable no matter how limited your time, experience or expertise. Everyone remembers the time they sowed their first seed or potted up their first cutting to create a new plant. But for all of us there's so much to learn that you can spend a gardening lifetime constantly trying out new techniques and improving on the previous season's results. The trouble is that many first- timers find gardening a daunting prospect. Confusing plant names, unpredictable seasons and complicated techniques all help to fuel their anxiety. In reality, gardening is the most natural and simplest of pastimes. The vast majority of gardening tasks are straightforward, and easy to achieve if you take them one step at a time. When I started as an inquisitive nine- year-old in my parents' Yorkshire
garden, I loved gardening instantly and my interest has grown with every plant that I've raised and cared for. Even now, each time I go out into the garden I find something new or surprising that captures my imagination. Yes; even when it's raining! This keeps gardening fresh and fulfilling, season after season as the years go by.