03 Dec “I’d started off with a lawn at the back and gradually it disappeared…”

I had an allotment at Glendevon Allotments, since the mid 1980s. I’d started exhibiting in shows from my garden at home. I’d started off with a lawn at the back and gradually it disappeared so I could grow flowers. I’ve been in this house since 1978. I got the bug for growing flowers. Looking after my daughter as a baby, she was very ill and never slept through the night. I needed something for myself. A way of relaxing. I’ve been active all my life – walking holidays, judo, horse riding. I’m not a couch potato! I wanted to do something. I knew nothing about gardening. I started pottering. Didn’t know a tulip from a daffodil. There was practically nothing in the garden when we came here. The man in the house before us grew exhibition chrysanthemums. They need lifting in winter, so when he died, no-one did that and they’d died. So I started with a blank canvas.