What is the world coming to?

I've a confession to make.

I'm no spring chicken!

In fact, your Garden Expert is probably closer to the Victor Meldrew generation than the Ant and Dec generation and the 'Long Suffering' is always chastising me about my 'What on earth is the world coming to?' protestations.

However even she almost choked on her Shredded Wheat this morning when she opened the newspaper to see a story about members of the public being asked to water a city's trees!

I kid you not!

The residents of that fine city of Derby are indeed being asked to help ensure that newly-planted trees survice - by regularly watering them.

And the reason?

Well, according to the chap from the council "The more money we spend on watering then the less we have to spend on planting trees so if the community are able to assist us in getting these young trees established, that means we can continue with the tree-planting programme," he said.

Oh.

Well that's all right then.

What next?

Feed your local schoolchildren so that we can spend more on books?