ach year brings a new wave of gardening “trends”, often delivered with great enthusiasm and the quiet implication that your garden may already be terribly out of date.

Scroll through social media for long enough and you’ll encounter gardens arranged entirely for photographs, colour schemes dictated by trends and algorithms, and the occasional suggestion that a small courtyard should somehow resemble a Balinese retreat. All very impressive, of course, although not always practical in February, when the rain is horizontal and the wheelie bins are threatening to escape down the drive.