I have nothing but admiration for those gardeners who meticulously plan their gardens. Shape, size and design are painstakingly worked out on paper before being put into operation, plants are graded and sized, and colour schemes are lovingly organised so that the whole becomes a symphony of taste and beauty. I stand in awe of such people and would give much to have their talents and their artistic abilities.

However, when artistic talent and patience were being given out I was in the wrong queue. My garden - to use the term in its loosest sense - has never in my time been in danger of being planned in any way. Nothing matches anything else; it is either a feast of mad colour or everything is gone over and dead. As for shape and design, forget it. My principle, if I have one, is to bung something that I fancy into the nearest hole and wait for it to come up.

The problem with that sort of gardening of course is that you have to have the memory of an elephant and/or enough gardening knowhow to recognise weeds. I do not know how many times people have said to me of an interesting-looking sprout of greenery 'What is that?' only to receive the reply 'I haven't the faintest idea'. And many a sprout of the same greenery was hauled up because I thought it was a weed, only to remember belatedly that it was a much desired and rare plant that I had for long searched.

But you would be wrong to think that this kind of gardening is without its joys and excitement. For one thing it can be entrancing to have a beautiful plant burst into flower without any remembrance of having planted it. Even if a name cannot be put to it, its beauty and unexpectedness provide a feeling of delight that cannot be experienced by gardeners with long-term planned beds. They know what is coming up, usually to the week, day or even hour. They know its colour, how long it will last, what it will do when its flowering is over and probably its size to the exact millimetre!

Having said all that, even a slap-dasher like myself has some kind of plan. I plan to have every plant that I ever fancied in a border about twenty feet long and a dozen or so tubs. I know, I. know that this way madness lies but it is great fun trying to achieve It. It does mean that many plants are eventually dug up to make way for others but all my relatives and friends and sometimes-total strangers benefit because plants are given away to the first person to cross the threshold. In that way I can pass on the excitement of gardening to others and keep a clear conscience about wasting money or killing living plants.

So, although, if I believed in reincarnation I would definitely want to get into the right queue and come back as a garden planner with imagination and artistic ability, I have had a life full of gardening excitement and even contentment. The fun of not knowing what is around the gardening corner has made up, to a large degree, for the feeling of inadequacy that assails when my gardening expert friends expound on their triumphs. We no-hopers have our little triumphs too, all the more welcome for being nearly always totally unexpected.