What to do on a muggy overcast day threatening rain? Why, garden of course. By afternoon the temperature was supposed to rise to 26 degrees, which would be the coolest day-time high for the coming week at least, so we thought we'd meander off to one of our favourite plant nurseries after our ravine walk.

And there we walked among row after row of tempting new cultivars and old garden standbys alike. Although on first entering the spacious outdoor arena hosting the garden plants at Ritchie's Feed and Seed we had looked closely at some of the two-gallon perennials that were being advertised for 40% off at this point in the season, we thought we'd walk through the entire panoply of bright colourful offerings before settling on any we would welcome to our garden.

When contemplating additions to the garden the impulsive acquisitive streak within mandates that greed will overcome good sense and caution. Our gardens are already stuffed with plants, adding any more will simply translate in months and years to come to one plant inevitably crowding into the space allotted to another. But that's rational thinking and my personal response to gardening is solely emotional; I want them and I want them all, to tease and please my eye.

And my husband isn't averse to indulging my gardening muse, so we tend to go off and peruse the offerings and reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion that no, we haven't much room, and what's the point of simply introducing new plants that will challenge the territory of existing ones, but who knows, they might decide to get along nicely? And so we indulge.

Yesterday we bought a European buglos whose foliage I find quite lovely. We also bought two new cultivars of coneflower with lovely colouration. And yet another hosta, to 'fill in' a place in the garden recently vacated by a very tired, scrawny and sprawling globe cedar that appeared to outlive its contentment in the garden.

And so, on our return I set about tidying up that part of the garden that has hosted those lovely pink California poppies which obligingly reseed themselves. I pull out the plants, snip off the seed heads and toss them back onto the soil, knowing they'll resort to reproducing themselves in due time. In the meantime, freeing up additional space, which is where the buglos was given a home.

We found nooks and crannies needing a punch of new colour for the coneflowers, and inserted the new hosta which my husband chose; I wanted a crinkle-leafed one, but acceded to his choice this time; and it was he who did the digging and planting while I went about filling a compost bag with plant detritus. It is soul-satisfying work. I've managed to infect my husband over the years with my enthusiasm for gardening.

And though there were sprinkles of rain when we'd been out at Ritchie's, the rain held off until after we had completed our pleasant tasks and then thunder began rolling in and with it torrential rain. Which, as far as we're concerned represented splendid opportunity and timing.