Andy Richardson: It's mow joke tackling the garden jungle

"It really hates you," said The Blonde, as though the lawn mower had developed neurosis. Given the thrashing it had just received, it would have had every right.

I'd bought it from B&Q – though other hardware stores are available – an hour earlier.

Unboxed in bright sunshine, fitted together with the skill of a flatplan-eating ninja, it had been ready for action like a new Jag fresh from the showroom.

And in less than 13 minutes, I'd killed it. That's what happens when you use a snazzy domestic mower for a job that needs a combine harvester.

"That's such a Sunday morning thing," The Blonde added, as the dead mower lay prone on the grass, surrounded by my lawn-turned-hay-meadow. "What are you going to do now?"

I was not to be defeated. If the strimmer had had legs, it would have seen what was coming and run back to B&Q.

I removed its gauntlet, extended the plastic flex as far as it would go, held it a sensible distance from my legs – so as not to shear my shins – and finished the final part of the meadow. Grass flew into the air. Bugs cursed me. The scent of fresh-cut grass filled the air. I sneezed like a pollen-allergic, lawn-mower-killing, hay-meadow-culling ninja.

Ha. Back of the net. A year's worth of growth reduced to cuttings and only one shiny new machine broken. It won't be long before I pass the audition for Gardener's World. I've got your number, Monty, I'm coming straight for ya.

I love the idea of gardening: hours in the sunshine, immersed in nature, surrounded by buzzy things, pretty things and fragrant things. Hard work rewarded by a long, cold glass of something refreshing. And then the opportunity to take a long hard look at all that good work and offer words of self-congratulation. "Yeah, me and nature, we're besties. It's all my work. Bring on Chelsea."

Like so many things, the dream and the reality are distant bedfellows. Since February, I've been walking along an ever-narrowing garden path where hellebores, roses, oregano and raspberry canes have been slowly encroaching. The advance of the untended flowers, fruit and herbs has been an interesting exercise in ecological succession. Plants, probably animals and fungi – there have been mushrooms – have fought for space, reaching a steady state. I'm sure if I'd have left it long enough, tall oak trees would have grown and the place would have been overrun by bears and wolves.

But on Sunday I took the power back. The poplar saplings that had somehow self-rooted on a drive that resembled the Woodland Trust were cut off at the trunk. Suddenly, I can park my car without feeling as though I've stepped onto the set of The Hobbit.

My approach to gardening mirrors my approach to life. It can best be summed up by the title of a Small Faces song: All Or Nothing. And during the past year, it's been nothing. A combination of work, allied to more work, sprinkled liberally with a dash of more work and followed by long, hazy days with my adorable ginger son has meant the garden has received as much attention as a paid-up member of Divorcees R Us.

I'm following in the footsteps of a late colleague who once worked at this parish and famously 'lost his daughter' in his garden. The Eric Clapton-loving journalist was too busy polishing his sports cars to enter his shed.

His back yard became so overgrown that when his daughter went to play outside one evening, she became completely hidden from view.

They hunted high and low to no avail and considered calling a missing person's hotline before finally relocating her beneath a bramble bush. I think he got through three lawn mowers, seven strimmers and two skips after that incident.

On previous occasions when my lawn has become as unwieldy and unmanageable as a tiger in a goat pen, I've taken the Bob Marley route to garden clearance: Catch A Fire. A virulent ivy got so out of hand that the sun stopped shining for one long, dark summer.

A chainsaw saw that off and the flames burned bright as roots thicker than Dylan Hartley's thighs were torched.

On Sunday, it was the turn of the hay meadow to bid farewell to its long hot summer.

My lawn is once more billiard ball-flat, it is greener than an Olympic swimming pool, it is more well-tended than an alcoholic's drinks cupboard. And a broken down lawn mower seems like a fair price to pay for that.