Isn’t gardening supposed to be relaxing – something you do on days off or bank holidays to unwind?

In theory maybe. But in practice it’s anything but.

Gardening programmes make it look easy. There’s Monty Don pottering about in the flowerbeds showing us how it’s done, filling pots with compost and grit, pushing in a few carefully-selected seeds and bedding them in.

The difference is, because he’s being filmed, he’s got everything within reach. It’s like the ‘here’s one I made earlier’ on Blue Peter. I opened our garden shed at the weekend to find half an egg cup of compost from last year, and a pack of out-of-date seeds, so ended up sitting in traffic on the ring road during a hasty trip to B&Q.

The hobby is also expensive. Like many people we fork out every year for plants, but once summer is over we allow them to perish through neglect, so end up having to buy more the following spring.

Many of us don’t even wait until summer is over before we abandon our newly-planted flowers. Gardening is time-consuming, and often the last thing we want to do when we return home from work is water plants. We’ve only got a handful of pots, and they’re only feet from the door, but there are many evenings when neither me nor my husband can be bothered to fill the watering can.

I feel like a bad mother when my friend picks it up and asks whether she can give our plants a drink. “That’s a lovely lupin, but it looks distressed,” she said, before giving it a good drenching.

Buying flowers is a bit like buying a new dress then sticking it in the wardrobe, forgetting it exists. Blooms look good in the garden centre, but it takes effort to keep them that way.

Our flower borders are a tangled mass of weeds, growing from earth as hard as concrete. A spade isn’t up to the job, we need a JCB. I’ve begun to realise why the retired residents in our village have immaculate gardens, while ours is an unkempt poor relation. At this time of year it’s a full-time job, and they’re at home all day to do it.

Before we had a garden, my husband dreamed of growing vegetables, but he’s already getting worked up over the number of salad crops we lost to slugs last year, despite the recommended precautions. And his sweet peas have failed. “I don't think it’s worth it,” he moaned.

Even the grass brings problems. “I’ve run out of petrol,” my husband cried as the mower spluttered to a halt. That’s another £20 gone.

This is the real gardeners’ world and it’s no bed of roses.