Well yes indeed everyone told me that ‘I’d love gardening when I got older’ and it is has happened!

Over the years I have ‘pottered’ at gardening in my various homes, 22 of them in 24 years I had a few, however I haven’t loved it till this year, I guess that makes me ‘older’.

The last couple of years have been a tad busy with family circumstances but this year as things have settled hubby and I decided we would tackle the garden. What started with let’s do a few pots has now become a bit of a revamp.

I totally blame him, in a good way, when in fact I came home one day to find him taking out the garden hedge as he decided to replace it with new panels and this is where and how it all started to take root.

You may remember a few weeks ago I wrote in my column about Twig who started life as just that a twig from my parents’ hydrangea, I am proud to say Twig is now flowering and in doing so has indeed joined the revamp of the garden boundary in lighting the spark of a love affair with gardening.

Over the years my parents and grandparents have won prizes for their gardens and indeed my grandfather was a landscape gardener however it was my siblings who took up the mantle until now.

I can honestly say that gardening has become my new therapeutic hobby, although I have a long way to go to catch up with the rest of my family and indeed my fellow columnist Lynne, whose advice I will be following more avidly from now on; it has however shone a stronger light on how good it is for one’s mental health in so many ways.

Whilst I love going for a walk to drink in the surrounding countryside I never actually realised that pulling up a hedge (of mainly ivy), growing fully fledge plants from scratch into proper grown up ones and nurturing the flowers we have bought from the local nurseries would help to ensure that anxiety is kept at bay.

I have a T-shirt on which it says, ‘Stop and watch the flowers grow’ and this year I have done just that. It is soothing, enlightening and relaxing to just stop, to breathe and to sit while the plants just do their thing, that being growing in the sunshine we are currently enjoying.

In a social media post this week I have noted how like plants humans are, we thrive when surrounded by positivity and care but wilt in the shadows of negativity and storms; we can however bounce back to stand tall again when the latter happens just like the garden around us does.

So, if you are a gardener I am thrilled to have joined you, if you think I will wait till I am older, don’t, start loving it now, it will pay you back in buckets I can assure you.