Most gardeners have been suffering from this least English of summers and their talk is of how much to water and whether to go Mediterranean and give up growing delphin-iums. Tactful staking of still alive plants across the corpses of the hasbeens helps to cover some of the gaps, but miss two days and everything starts to look seedy Very seedy. This summer I have felt that I might as well live-head the flowers, because by tomorrow they will be crisped and gone. The work of cutting down, watering and plenty of snipping and coaxing just keeps the crisps at bay. IN THE PAST two months, the total rainfall here might have been measured in an eggcup. Lately, my only aim has been to prevent the garden from looking as though a sack of potato crisps had been thrown at the place.

Leaves and flowers get browned off in a day, so that keeping up with the dead-heading is not a possibility if normal life is underway. In fact, I’ve been enjoying it too much myself to dispatch any party invitations yet.! Instant Gardening Services, at the Chelsea Gardener, 125 Sydney Street, London SW3 6NR (0171-351 2388 or 5656). But I didn’t mind, the effect was stunning.By 25 July my balcony was transformed. Despite the delay and the frustration of unreturned phone calls, I’m delighted with one of the prettiest nooks I’ve seen in London. Nor were the window boxes white, as I had expected, while the planting was more purple, pink and green than the blue and white suggested at my last meeting with the company. Pretty fast, I agree, but not really “instant”.The dark-green window boxes arrived already planted with jasmine, clematis, trailing ivy, nicotiana, salvia and hedera helix. But they were too short for the width of the arches and had to be replaced with longer ones.

I had been told the work would take two hours to complete; in fact, from start to finish it took six hours. It was a big outlay – twice the amount I had planned to spend – but I convinced myself that I was adding that extra outdoor room to the flat and increasing the property’s potential value.Two weeks later – during which time I received an invoice for work not yet begun – the installers arrived. Had I thought about automatic irrigation to avoid losing expensive plants while I was away on holiday? I winced at the additional expense. I’d just have to rely on neighbours for watering duties.Eventually, I decided in favour of the arched trellis and window boxes which, with soil and plants, cost pounds 2,737.75 including VAT. Groups of terracotta pots, washed blue, with blue window boxes and seasonal blue, white and green planting would come to a reasonable pounds 878.81.

But a scheme like this lacked the dramatic effect I was after.How about a fountain? I had grand ideas, but this struck me as faintly ludicrous. With window boxes containing evergreen shrubs and seasonal colour, this scheme cost pounds 2,103.25, which was cheaper than the trellis design but offered less privacy.The price could be reduced further by focusing on colour rather than clever hardware, he suggested. What other ideas did he have? A more rustic effect could be achieved by fixing rounded metal arches to the parapet. These could be linked with ivy-strewn rope garlands attached by loops of wire.