Ever had one of those plants you forgot you even bought? This one was hiding in plain sight – a box ball, in an urn. I’d bought it when some people were coming round, plonked it in the urn for instant sophistication, had it roundly admired, then enjoyed it so much I forgot I’d never taken it out from its garden centre pot.

When it finally occurred to me, ahem, a few years later that it probably needed at least a soil-refresh, I discovered the poor thing had no soil. its roots had grown out of both top and bottom and entirely filled the urn, living pretty much on water and thin air. I had to cut it out of the urn – and here it is just before I cut it out of its original pot too. I am glad to say that, a few months later, it’s gone to live in a nice fake-lead planter with some actual soil and, although still a little peaky round the edges, it’s doing nicely, thank you, in training to be a box-cube.