You Are Gardening Crazy When...

 Why take 1 cutting when you can take 1000?

I’ve spent the best part of this year trailing mud into the house. 

It’s just a bit too much trouble to untie my boot laces when I come in from a bit of gardening work, so I don’t generally bother. I do have a bit of an end of the day run round with a cloth to clean the white floor tiles we have (Why on earth did we buy white bathroom tiles?) so I can start a new day clean and fresh. I also always wear a shopkeepers coat now. If you’ve ever seen episodes of ‘Open all Hours’ you’ll know the style of it. I actually wear it to the shops now too as I think it makes me look like I’m busy in the same way people walk around workplaces with a sheet of A4 paper in their hand to look like they are doing something or going somewhere. Most people think I am a mechanic in our local shop. I have the coat on permanently and always have muddy boots but what else can turn us into local gardening characters? 

Maybe there are certain traits we should be looking out for to see if we are going garden crazy.

You know you are garden crazy when you…

Feel uncomfortable in some-one else's house if there's a badly placed houseplant and desperately resist the urge to move it to a more suitable spot.

Find it difficult resisting dead-heading in some-one else's garden.

Buy weak straggly, reduced price plants because you think you can bring them back to life but generally end up in the compost bin – which is OK as it’ll feed other plants.

Read the labels on plants at the garden centre and disagree with what it says as well as not having enough information on the label for people not as knowledgeable as you.

Look at neglected gardens as a challenge.

Name your children and pets after flowers.

Think £50 is a lot of money for a pair of trousers, but a great price for a particularly wonderful plant.

Can give local directions based on particularly fine hedges and specimen trees as landmarks without mentioning roads, post offices or pubs.

Stop talking mid-sentence when you see a plant you don't recognize.

Wake up in the middle of a cold night and wonder if you should go out and cover your succulents and tender perennials.

Water other people's plants when out for a walk from your own water bottle if they look thirsty.

Only watch football matches on the TV to assess the pitch quality and percentage of artificial grass added.

Taking cuttings from peoples gardens

Always have a pair of secateurs in your pocket in case you see overhanging plant hazards.

Have a mountain of plastic pots and sheeting squirrelled away as it’ll always come in useful.

Give courgettes to friends and co-workers (and sometimes the postie)

Proudly show your compost pile to visitors.

Have more pictures of your plants than your children/grandchildren.

Are pleased when some nettles grow in your garden because they're great for the compost heap, and they show that the soil is rich in that area.

Forever trying to give away plants to friends and neighbours because you propagated far too many. Why take one cutting when you can take 100?

Feel that seed catalogues are one the year's most anticipated thing posted through your letterbox and you have the bookmark tab full of links to online catalogues.

Garden looks better than your house.

There is no item of footwear you own that hasn't at some time had soil on them and all your clothes are gardening clothes.

Car has so much soil on the carpet you could germinate seeds in it.

Ensure every annual holiday has a nursery and /or botanic garden included.

Find that most people share all their plant problems with you.

Have plants in pots at the back door waiting to be added to your garden at some stage when you have either the time or room.

Spend a lot of your free time just watching your garden grow.