“Moien!” I wave ‘hello’ at every person who walks past my front garden in our village in rural Luxembourg. The one, and for a long time, only word of Luxembourgish that I spoke.

When my mother, an Englishwoman who married a German, moved into their tiny flat in West Germany, she knew she did not want to do so without a garden. The only problem: the flat did not even have a balcony. Careful negotiations with their landlord led her to install a rooftop garden on the garage belonging to their downstairs neighbour. My mother would climb out of the window of their flat onto the garage roof that was soon bedecked with pots of roses, lavender, geraniums. When I was born, the rooftop garden became my outdoor nursery.

Years later, when I, an English-German immigrant, moved to Luxembourg with my partner, the local garden centre was essential to my feeling at home. At first, we lived in a flat with a small balcony, and I crammed as many pots as I could into the square metre.

Now, we have a tiny garden, and while it is a terribly irksome triangle shape and bordered by two roads, I would not do without it. It is the garden that has introduced me to our neighbours. People stop and say hello. In the local shop, folk recognize me from seeing me among the lavender and sage as they drive into the village. Last year, a couple from up the road had their first child. A lovely daughter who waves at me as I weed my borders. She has recently started to call out to me: “Moien!” she says. I wave and call back: “Moien! Hello!” I wonder when she will start growing flowers too.