What plants would you choose to grow, given an empty patch, and given the stipulation that you don't want to spend six months first designing it on a piece of graph paper and that everything you grow in this garden must be raised by you from seed? What would you like to eat next year, which flowers would give you most pleasure? With this simple premise, James Fenton sets out his happy vision of a garden, and devises the perfect starter kit for gardens as modest as a face flannel on a windowsill, or as grand as Versailles.
