The plants I rescued from the gutter are putting out little purple flowers. I can't identify them. I'm not good at flowers.

There aren't many flowers in our garden (its only a back yard really) but there's lots of greenery. Ten years ago we demolished a shed and made a flowerbed. Now it's a thicket. There's a eucalyptus tree, two holly bushes, a hawthorn and other things I can't name, all bunched up together.

I believe in happenstance. I like to be surprised and if plants just turn up in the garden- self-sown- I'm delighted- though there's not much room for that to happen any more. Our stoutest feature is an ash tree that grew- of its own accord- out of a grave of one of our cats. (He was a ginger Tom called Kennedy who broke his neck in a fall off a neighbour's roof- cat's are sure-footed? not this one!) I keep it pollarded so that it doesn't completely take over.

I don't do much to maintain the garden. If there's a dry spell I'll slosh a bit of water around and that's about it. And it's not just laziness (though it's that as well.) I want the garden to be independent of me- to be other. I like to step out of the house and feel I'm no longer in a world I've crafted.