Up the garden path

Wildlife and visitors love the plants growing in Val's path

- Val Bourne

YOU can always spot a gardener's garden, because there are plants galore. And, so it proved, when I travelled to Wales to visit a fern garden in an urban cul-de-sac. I passed neat lawns and tarmac, but at the end was a front garden full of exuberant planting, with not a blade of grass. I knew it was the right house and that I was in for a treat.

Our garden is packed with plants as well and the path along the front of the house, maintained by the Best Beloved, wouldn't pass a health and safety inspection. You can't get down it without doing hopscotch. The garden table and chairs have been relegated to another part of the garden, to protect his plants. And, if truth be told, 'he indoors' doesn't like people to walk along it - even though it's meant to be a path. And the annoying thing is, our garden visitors always like his path best of all!