Our garden is five years old now (how did that happen?) and it’s coming into its own now.

The plot was part of what is now our daughter’s house so there are some established trees on the boundary but most of it was “a clean slate”, as an estate agent would say. That’s is to say, there was nothing here.

I’ve started a few gardens in the past, in different countries so knew roughly what I was doing, at least that’s my story. Looking around the neighbourhood is a good way to say what seems easy to grow. I knew some of the areas would be over-planted, but it’s better to get things moving and prune later. I’m just at that point now, there is some over-crowding and I realise I might have to try to move some plants that will struggle to thrive. But that’s part of the evolution.

However, after a slow start this year, the garden is really starting to look good. The plants are established and the colours are what I hoped. I tried to make it low maintenance (not sure that worked out too well) and slugs this year seem to have been on a mission to create a desert, but the balance is now right. It’s encouraging after a lot of hard work.

I was contemplating this as I watched a bumble bee doing its thing on the flowers. There are 24 species of bumble bees in the UK, of which eight are the commonest and six of which are parasitic - who knew? Bumble bees, I was surprised to discover, don’t make honey, unlike the honey bee, the clue’s in the name. This is because queen bumble bees hibernate over winter, and don’t need food, unlike the honey bees. The main thing is bumble bees (whatever the species) are pollinators and it’s due to them we have the variety of plants we do. I think it’s a real joy to see how we share our gardens with a host of wildlife, from bees, worms, hedgehogs, birds and even slugs and I think it’s part of the inspiration to keep on gardening, even in wet windy days.

• Fred Knobbit is a nature blogger. He grew up in the Pennines in Lancashire on the edge of an industrial town but is now safely in Cornwall. You can read his archive at www.bodminblogger.com