Sheena Patterson of Oxford Garden Design has a fight on her hands for control of the ‘dirty den’

Recently there’s been a bit of excitement chez Patterson – our brand new garden shed has arrived and built.

Trouble is – is it going to be a HE-shed or a SHE-shed?

It seems like some things never change and whatever their age, boys will be boys, and they love their toys.

Garden sheds tend to be the boy’s toy box and quickly fill up with all manner of stuff – man stuff that is. I have been designing gardens for over 15 years now, and a shed that hasn’t been turned into a fully-fledged boys’ dirty den is a rare thing indeed.

To be fair, we started with a given: it’s going to contain our prized, but ancient, garden tool collection. Not only does the business own almost every gardening tool known to man – and, of course woman – but we have also inherited an amazing collection of old garden tools from the previous owner of our house.

We discovered a short pointy thing, with two sharp ends, which I understand is a parsnip fork (for lifting parsnips) also, slightly more usefully, a pair of cut and grip flower shears, designed to hold the flower after pruning.

Another little treasure was a spade, with a hollowed out end, specially made for digging in heavy clay soil. Then there’s an old seed drill that still works for scatting seed in rills.

I’m not sure things like this are manufactured any more, which makes our finds all the more interesting. Even an old wooden ladder with some missing rungs, has an authentic charm, although it would certainly fail a health and safety inspection.

The most useful find (and still a boy toy) is probably the old Webb’s push lawn mower which must be circa 1950s, unbelievably it still works.

We’ve been quite impressed with our find and weren’t really aware of how much a cylinder mower can do. Like most people, we’ve always bought electric and petrol mowers and don’t give hand-push cylinders a second thought. What’s more, there is a certain sense of enjoyment going out with a push mower that’s older than yourself!

Having said that, our new shed still houses the ultimate boy toy – the brand new ride on lawnmower.

So, from what I have said so far, you have probably already worked out that this new shed of mine is very definitely turning into a sHEd, and not a SHEd. And I am afraid you are right.

Most evenings my partner Paul can be found pottering around in his new lair and I rarely get a look in. In fact, things have got so bad that my new tools for Oxford Garden Design are still in the garage and I am out looking for, yes you guessed it, a new SHEd.