Sometimes you are taken by surprise. Last spring I was sent a gift by the daughter of an old friend. Long ago she had been inspired by our garden and now she is working as a gardener in Devon. And, delightfully, she had collected some seeds and sent them to me.

They were a mixture of some commercial seed packets and some seeds she had gathered herself. There were a few things I might never have thought of growing and some I have tried in the past and failed to germinate.  I sowed the lot and had some interesting results. ‘Datura’ was the poisonous Thorn-apple, which I scrapped lest it escape into our surrounding fields. The ‘Deptford Pink’ is a pretty, rare British native and it is now growing in our garden (Dianthus armeria)

Call me a snob, but I had a longstanding prejudice against Ageratum – I…