My mother, and many gardeners who are part of her generation, seemed to marry both gardening and flower arranging and do it quite well. She took a flower arranging course when I was young and has since continued both hobbies as if they were joined at the (rose) hip.

So I wonder which hobby benefited the other or was it a type of synergy that was created because they both had similar characteristics.

From what I understand, and observed from my mother's flower arrangements, arranging flowers is really no different to gardening. The arranger, like a gardener, has a plethora of considerations to be made before they plonk a few stems into an awkward shaped vase.

Firstly, the flower arranger needs to imagine the end product. This isn't unlike a gardener who needs to plan out their garden design with the end result in mind. This initial design period is essential for both the person doing the flower arrangement and the gardener and if not conceived properly will lose focus and the result will look catastrophic.

Second, both the floral designer and the gardener need to choose the main elements of their masterpiece. I noticed that my mum would always work with one or two main elements (the flowers that usually cost the most) and then fill in the rest with other secondary pieces. This is exactly the same as gardening. Most of us don't have the luxury of unlimited space and so we're forced to make a decision as to which plants will feature more prominently in our gardens.

Another similarity that gardening and flower arranging share is they both require an 'eye' for working with colour, texture, shape and height. Flower arrangements, like gardens, look much better when they're multi-dimensional and can imbue a sense of visual order and beauty.

Yet it seems the biggest difference between the two is eternal 'time and money'. Flower arrangers have the luxury of creating a masterpiece in a few hours while it can take years for a gardener to see their artwork come to fruition. And , it's far cheaper to do flower arranging than to create a garden.

But, I have a hunch that many people who enjoy gardening also derive pleasure from flower arranging and vice versa. They're certainly not mutually exclusive activities, yet they can be.

So it comes back to the question; Do flower arranging skills help make better gardeners, or do gardeners make better flower arrangers?