Chris Maclean: business is blooming

It's sunny and the girls are in the garden.

Well, garden is a bit of an overstatement.

They are tending to the pots, tubs, baskets and troughs that make up our floral offering for this summer.

Gardening is an occupation that is totally wasted on me. Don't misunderstand me, I adore flowers and well kept gardens. I'll gladly wander around stately homes admiring manicured lawns and gardens but the act of digging, planting, picking out, watering and so forth is, well, to me, stupid. I hate it.

This is my second pub and has been carefully chosen, again, not to have a garden.

For me this is preferable because, firstly, I haven't got to do any gardening and, secondly, gardens attract children, children demand feeding and therefore, with few exceptions, pubs with gardens must be child-friendly and provide food. I don't want to do that.

My wife originally trained as a gardener and enjoys herself doing this. The process of selecting plants is interesting too. Last year she had an interesting display of small tomatoes in her hanging baskets. Quirky and fun are good in the garden. But a lot of consideration needs to be given to light, watering needs, life by a roadside and the possibility of vandalism. Often passers-by brush their hands through the planters. They have been known to grab handfuls of lush vegetation and hurl it into the road. Something prickly with lots of thorns and the potential to leave a painful rash is ideal in areas like this.

Having lots of pots and tubs of exotic plants in the car park might be too tempting for some thieves. We have already lost some shrubs this way. The tubs should be large and heavy. It would be nice to think the thieves at least got backache.

This year, with the smoking ban looming, it may be appropriate to put greater emphasis on outside areas if that is where smokers are to assemble. To sit on a draughty bench looking at the wheelie bins isn't going to win customers. And predictions of a hot summer could make outside areas very lucrative.

So it looks like another month of me humping great bags of compost around.

I am beginning to admire those displays of artificial flowers ~ far less maintenance.