The central canal

It is often said there are two types of gardener, collectors and makers of garden pictures. I can never decide which I am. In the end, the plant must come first, and if it can be placed where it is going to look pretty as well as thrive, so much the better. Deciding where to plant is, to me, the most important part of gardening. Sometimes this decision has been made, the bucket of sieved leafmould prepared and, at the last minute, it occurs to me that nearbly plants are too invasive, the position unsuitable after all, and back goes the plant to the potting shed.

When we moved here thirty years ago, to a typical, pleasant Dublin garden, I had the usual new garden owner's attitude of not daring to touch anything: my courage failed me when it came to pruning the established apples and pears in case of damaging them; if I dug up a bluebell by mistake, it was carried tenderly down to the end of the garden and replanted. I now say, 'Death to bluebells' and pull their heads off to stop them seeding, for no matter how lovely they are in woods, in an overcrowded town garden they are a nuisance.

I started to change the garden piece by piece, and the process continues. Every spring it is satisfying, as all gardens should be, but by late July all the mistakes show. New paths and beds are made - endless alterations take place. So many visits have now been made to the builders' merchants to buy sand for the raised beds and paved paths that the rather taciturn man there just looks at me and shouts, 'Three bags of sand'.

The raised bed in the sundial garden

The longer one has owned a garden the more complicated it becomes to find appropriate sites for all the good plants that have to be accommodated; they cannot all have first-class positions, and fitting them all in is like doing a jigsaw puzzle. I think it is easier to go against all gardening rules and change many of the beds in August, when I can see exactly what colour and size the plants are. The beds may appear empty in winter, but what looks like a lovely gap in full sun turns out to be starved of light and moisture in summer. So plants are moved in August - very carefully - and are planted with a bucket of what I think they would fancy. Any combination of peat, leafmould, old manure, compost, fresh topsoil, sand, bonemeal and a balanced fertilizer is used; perhaps the maternal instinct in women activates the desire to feed plants well.