As an online reader of other people’s words, I am careless. I’ll scroll rapidly through a great article because it pops up while I am cooking pasta or in traffic or waiting at the school gate and about to have a bag hurled at my midriff. I am in a rush and I am not concentrating and there is no time for attention when everything is received through a rectangular screen, So I have an experiment to propose to you for 2026.

Chelsea has been a ritual for me for years - although bar 2022 when I got an invite, enjoyed from the sofa. A gathering of gardening talent is vital and needed and there’s a lot to celebrate. But something is shifting and has been distilled by Tayshan Hayden-Smith’s eloquent and brave statement in the run up to this year’s flower show.