There are so many gadgets available to gardeners nowadays that it is tempting to believe that our horticultural lives involved little more than drudgery before they were invented: computer-controlled irrigation with one of those little battery-operated timers on the garden tap; automatic ventilators on the greenhouse, and now – heaven forbid – robotic mowers which will get on with cutting the grass while we sit comfortably in front of the telly. Earghh!
Convenient and labour-saving though some of these