They were ahead of us at the checkout in B&Q: two small children, a boy and a girl, each clutching a tray of plants whose green shoots were too newly grown to be recognisable as any familiar flower or vegetable.

But, whatever they were, the children had clearly made their own choice. As their mother watched, they took out their pocket money and paid for the plants and carried them from the store. Their eyes were shining. If they hadn't been walking so carefully - so as not to drop their precious purchases - they would have been skipping.

It made me feel like skipping too. What better occupation for two children on a fine Saturday morning than taking some plants home to grow in their garden? What better way to teach children about the joys of gardening?

My husband maintains that you never see a gloomy face in a garden centre. Everyone's always good humoured, smiling, considerate, polite. I think he may have a point. After all, gardening is the one thing we do that puts us in close touch with nature, with growing things and fresh air and the earth itself. Even just thinking about it can make us feel good.

I love gardens. I will go miles to walk around someone's else's garden, whether it's one of those grand ones attached to a stately home or a tiny pocket handkerchief someone's generously opened for a day in aid of charity. I like getting ideas for our own garden - I'm quite good at seeing what might work and what wouldn't. I love watching the birds in our garden; walking through it, sitting in the shade on a sunny day with a glass of wine or a cup of tea and breathing in the scent of flowers.

But I have a confession to make: I don't really like gardening. A little bit, now and then - a weed pulled here, a bit of planting there. It can be quite satisfying. I've even been known to enjoy it, for a short while, on a good day. But, on the whole, I don't like the way it makes my bones and muscles ache for days afterwards. It makes me feel battered, rather than exercised. I don't like gardening when it's too cold or wet or hot, which rules out a good deal of the year.

In fact, to be brutally honest, I'm lazy about gardens. I want to enjoy them without any effort. It's a good thing my husband loves gardening, and only complains now and then about the lack of help. He tells me I'm the ideas person. I think maybe I was cut out to be one of those Lady Gardeners, the sort who got a name for themselves for creating beautiful gardens, when in fact they had an army of gardeners to do the real work. All they did was direct operations.

It's not that I wasn't encouraged to love growing things as a child. We were given bulbs to plant, indoors or out, and packets of seeds. But anything I planted usually ended up forgotten, neglected, swamped with weeds. Unfortunately, we were also dragooned into helping with the routine garden tasks in the garden and I hated that. Perhaps it counteracted the good effect of being able to plant my own things. I think most people only take to gardening when they've a garden of their own to care for.

So I hope those children we saw in B&Q will grow - with their plants - to love gardening, to find real pleasure in it. I'd wish that for any child.

Just so long as I don't have to do it myself.