Acquiring the greenhouse has set in motion other developments: I’m now also the proud owner of a heated propagator and have been busy planting seeds today, now that the moon is waxing again.

The various old tins and boxes in which had accumulated masses of seed packets in various stages of deterioration were simply no longer acceptable in my posh new set up. So I bought a CD storage container and managed to fit in plastic index separators and a little inner box for labels etc. Then threw away all the out-of-date seeds (an embarrassing number, some mouldy!) and put the current packets in alpha order. Very satisfying.

The auriculas are now starting to flower for the first time – it’s exciting to see the different colours emerge as I had no idea what they would be like when I rescued the poor things from a dank final sale corner of a hideous garden centre last year…