John-Luke just loved to garden. When we were going to move house, we weren’t looking for a big garden and taking this one on was a bit daunting as we knew absolutely nothing. But he took so much pleasure in learning how to care for our own little piece of nature, and would spend many a happy hour weeding, pruning and tending the compost. It helped that our nephew Harry would climb right into the compost pile to help turn it over! We worked really hard in the garden and were trying to make it with as much Japanese influence as possible. JL loved to watch Gardeners World and Monty Don was his idol. We would always do whatever Monty told us in his jobs for the weekend. On our last visit to Japan we visited many of the gardens that had been featured in Monty’s special programme. John-Luke also loved Joe Lycett’s sweary instagram garden updates, a very different tone to Monty, and they always made him smile. John-Luke had a special gardening hat which he looked so cute in. I used to love to look out and see him pottering outside with it on. During lockdown we would take a break from our desks by having a quick stroll, and seeing what everything was doing. We knew how lucky we were to have so much lovely outside space. We have many plants in the garden that are important because they came from somewhere special, like gardens we’d visited on birthdays, or garden centres we went to in far away places (like on the way back from Strongman competitions in Leeds!) so we could see a different selection of plants to the ones at the garden centres here. John-Luke also loved his houseplants and would spent many a happy afternoon, watering, dividing, and propogating. He was getting into growing things from seed, and I’d bought him a heat mat for germinating indoor seedlings for his last birthday.

I used to swap gardening tips with John-Luke with Robert acting as the third party including swapping pictures of each other's gardens. We used to have a competition of who could grow the most and biggest vegetables with varying amounts of success! The latest was in the summer growing tomatoes, chillis and green beans in which JL asked about if they should be planted in the soil and I advised him that the insects would most possibly eat them. He then helped with keeping the aphids away which seemed to attack the chilli plants.

I have the identical mini greenhouse which he has next to the kitchen. He used to enjoy the roses and used to ask for their type. I have planted two rose standards in the garden and I wish he was here to see them in the summer. One of the last comments about the garden was that he said ‘your mum has beaten me only with the tomatoes’! We both enjoyed gardening organically so didn’t mind the pests as much.

JL would ALWAYS bang on about his composting, so I would often WhatsApp him on a Monday morning and ask “recovered from your hardcore weekend mulching yet mate?”, with a giff of a rave, much to his annoyance! Though I suspect it was his way of getting back at me for jabbering on about arty farty stuff. He always humoured me like a pro.

It’s well known that his garden was John-Luke’s passion. So much so that when we decided to overhaul our garden, he was almost giddy with excitement. John-Luke eagerly shared shrub ideas, sent photos of plants in B&Q and Dobbies that would work. He even spent his weekends helping to dig up turf and paving slabs, insisting that he wanted to help. Once completed, we would regularly give spare bulbs or seeds to each other, except daffodils! He did not want any spare daffs. I will always make sure I plant gladioli yearly in his memory.