I didn't really come from a gardening background.  I had two aunts who were keen gardeners, but my parents weren't bothered about plants just that the garden was neat.

My dad's great passion, however, was his lawn which was ritually mown and clipped, feeded and weeded, pricked and poked until it was an emerald show stopper!  But how boring is grass when there is a whole world of colour in plants.

When I was first married we had a tiny postage stamp of a garden and it was here my interest first began, nurturing tiny seeds and bringing life to brown patches of soil.

And after our son was born I spent an afternoon planting wallflowers while he, I thought, was playing with his ball.  No, he'd followed behind me and had dug up virtually every plant I'd put in!!!

My interest grew steadily and slowly until we moved into our present house where we have much more space to let imagination run riot.  And boy, has it!

As I write this I look onto my front garden which is jammed with hardy perennials mainly, the backbone of my cottage garden.  Just tiny mounds at the moment or tips poking through, but in a month or two - wow!  The riot of colour in summer is what I love, so no formality, just plants anywhere and everywhere, all different sizes and shapes, when I run out of room I just ask my husband to dig up some more grass. 

Of course the mainstay of a cottage garden is scent and what better than lavender and although at this time of year it can look a bit scraggy, just to brush the leaves with your fingertips and the scent of summer is released.

But I am getting a bit ahead of myself here, I set out to explain how gardening can slowly but surely creep up on you and immerse you in a whole new world.

Because it's all such a journey of wonder and amazement, even all the Latin names for the plants come easily, as if they are absorbed rather than learnt.

Its just such an all consuming hobby and now a job too, but each spring I never cease to be amazed by all the tiny green shoots pushing up through the soil and I stroll round the garden and the polytunnels at work 'oohing' and 'aaahing' like a kid in a sweet shop.

Written by Gill Broadbent - Gardener - Yorkshire Lavender