I learned a valuable lesson when my Fatsia Japonica seeds arrived the day before yesterday, check the planting requirements before ordering.

I have, it seems, committed myself to keeping them warm, then keeping them in the fridge then waiting up to a year. Our fridge is a hazardous place, and my memory is poor, so it looks like the poor things are doomed even before we start.

Everything else looks fairly simple. Good King Henry, and Sorrel seem easy and the bamboo seems simple too, though I’m worried that in the wilds of Nottinghamshire the target of 100 foot high, a foot wide and a growth rate of a foot a day may not be achievable. On the web it says it will do well in any sort of soil apart from clay. We, as luck would have it, are on clay. Ingenuity and compost are likely to feature in the bamboo story.

Meanwhile, the seeds of the tea bush proved to be a little unusual. They are more like nuts than seeds and need soaking, scarifying and refrigerating before they start to grow. Somehow the effort seems justified to grow our sacred national drink, whereas it doesn’t seem worth it for a shrub.

I’m sorry the photograph is upside down but that’s how it’s coming through. Even when I turn the photo upside down before loading, hoping that it will come out right way round, it still comes out upside down. Does anyone know why?

It’s a bigger mystery than the miracle of plant growth.