Going to Sri Lanka for the first time gave us an excuse to buy some new maps. That's how our journeys always start. The journey we worked out took us straight from Colombo on the west coast up to the ancient sites of Dambulla and Polonnaruwa, in the centre of the island.

My stars of the year are the farmers of West Dorset, many of whom have brought in record crops this season. It's not fashionable to praise farmers. In the public eye, they have become villains. I am fed up with hearing what villains they are. Over and over again, the same vitriol is poured from the same cracked jugs: farmers are ruining the countryside; farmers are poisoning the land. The fact is, acre for acre, gardeners use far more nitrogenous fertilisers, fungicides, herbicides and insecticides than farmers. Farmers can't afford to chuck the stuff around in the quantities that gardeners do. Why can we be allowed to take pleasure in a well-grown row of beans while they are vilified for a fine field of corn?

What to do

Our stay at Lunuganga came right at the end of our journey in Sri Lanka. For more than two weeks, we'd moved slowly through the hill country in the centre of the island, riding trains, walking, tracking down waterfalls (I have a passion for waterfalls). Then we dropped off the high ground and came down to the south coast, spinning past Tangalle and Galle to Bentota. This is where the Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa finally rooted himself in 25 acres of land looking over the mirrored water of a huge lake. Over a period of 50 years, from 1948 onwards, he made the house and garden (you can't separate the two) that is Lunuganga.

What to do

I've never been an enthusiastic shopper. Indeed, one of the delights of gardening is that you actually need very little kit to be able to do it. A box labelled 'Seeds' in which to organise your seeds (£10 from gardentrading.co.uk)? They come in nice colours – string, slate or apple green – but an old shoebox does the job just as well. An 'Apple Wizard' (£59.99 in the RHS's Christmas gift catalogue)? "No need to bend down to collect those apples which have fallen from the tree as this clever gadget will gather them up" explains the blurb. Really? Would you trek to your garden shed to fetch your Wizard when you could just bend down and pick up your windfall apple?

From stunning landscapes of tomorrow to inspiration for the urban balcony...

What to do

What to do