In the very distant past I was a globetrotting sun freak enjoying living anywhere...except England.  As the years went on life situations changed and I accidentally discovered the joy of gardening.  It hit me like a bolt of lightning and I found I could memorise botanical names of trees and shrubs as I went about designing and changing our two acre garden in Kent.

I was hungry to learn more and enrolled at Hadlow Horticultural College in Tonbridge, Kent as a mature student.  I enrolled in many part time courses there for the next four years whilst continuing to design our garden at home.

I regularly visited local gardens and parks to learn more about garden design and on a visit to Wisley Gardens in Surrey I saw a stunning mixed grass border which I wanted to duplicate in our garden.  I had to swat up on grasses which opened up a whole new chapter to my rapidly increasing botanical repertoire.

I decided to add other genera with monocot foliage to add flowers for colour.  I chose Crocosmia, Agapanthus, Kniphofia……and Hemerocallis!  I immediately bought the book ‘The Gardener’s Guide to growing Daylilies’ by Diana Grenfell.  I read the book from cover to cover and put an order in to Apple Court Nursery which was run by the author of the book – Diana Grenfell herself.  They also sold a wonderful collection of hardy grasses and so the grass border was born.

The daylilies did so well and set the grass border off a treat and some ten years later I found myself looking at cutting edge daylilies in USA on the internet.  I was totally drawn in by the spiders and unusual forms and after lots of deliberation I put in an order to the USA.  It was nerve wracking and we followed the tracking online as they arrived in UK and went through the hub at customs.  When they arrived at our local depot I could not wait any longer and drove to Sevenoaks to collect them.

That was one order of many more to come…….