HOWZAT

I felt stricken by this. "But I'm not a fussy person..." I insisted. "I don't want to be fussy fussy. I don't."

Jill looked stern. "Fussy isn't twee."

By now, we were looking at another bed. Its log edging looked incredibly cheap. "Yes," nodded Michael briskly. "Rip it up."

Happily, they then praised my rosemary, which is old and white and intertwined with honeysuckle (they didn't like that). I relaxed for a moment. This was an error for now we went out on to the patio, which is surrounded by a lowish brick wall. I tried to take down the washing as surreptitiously as possible. "This bit isn't too bad," I said tentatively. "I think it's not too big a disaster."

Jill surveyed the area. "If the wall went..."

The wall?

"Don't laugh, but when I came out, I got the feeling even more that that [my house] is the farmhouse and that this is, actually, a piggery. It's just about the right height."

I looked at my patio and, worryingly, I too could see the pigs. In fact, I could almost hear them snuffling. The wall had to go. I felt like destroying it immediately.

Jill said I should not draw a plan but make a list of what I want. "You want herbs," said Jill. "You want hot/dry. You want climbers presumably on that wall that is a bit depressing. Get rid of that cheap trellis stuff. Just get rid of it."

Suddenly, for the first time since they had arrived, I felt free. It was something to do with getting rid of the wall. I could see how this would open up the entire garden. They suggested replacing my concrete slabs with Yorkshire paving with random edges and planting herbs and related plants, such as a climbing rose. They also suggested a tree (Malus hupehensis, a crab apple) at one end.

"Once you've sorted that out," said Michael, "you have to have a pretty damn good think about this."

"What," I asked. "The shed?"

He nodded. "Is it in the right place?" he wondered. Just by asking the question, I knew the answer.

I could hear Jill looking round at my plants and musing, "Very pretty, you've got some nice things." The three of us walked round, taking a mental chainsaw to much that we saw. They suggested getting rid of the rhododendron ("It's miserable," said Jill, and she's right), the lilac and the buddleia.

"One of the great things about gardening is you've got to be ruthless," said Michael with satisfaction.

Well, I said, I would never have thought of murdering the lilac.

"I think it's obvious," he said.

Jill adds, "It's beautiful, but only for two weeks of 52."

Michael looked round. "I can see quite an interesting garden coming out of this." Against all the odds, I felt a glow of pride.

Watch the video of what Chelsea Flower Show judges, Michael Balston and Jill Billington, made of Ann Treneman's "real" garden.

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