I have a theory that, when it comes to bitty looking borders, it’s early spring bulbs that have the potential to contribute the greatest degree of uncoordinated visual noise to the garden…

Imagine the shame of running out of twine on the job. I mean – it shouldn’t happen to a gardener, but last week, in the middle of training a rose against the garage wall, it did…

It’s helpful to hold a mental image of what you want to achieve at the forefront of your mind, the better to get you through the slogging stages. The fiery stems of pollarded scarlet willow shining brightly in the winter sun…

Thaw day – the snow has been and gone, the snow drops are in various states of disarray – the single species stubbornly buttoned up …

Change is coming, riding in from the west – probably, by the time we’ve all had our coffee this morning, it will have arrived. Milder air, and rain that falls with steady predictability…

The indoor plants are rightly looking nervous, well aware that it’s at this point every year, as spring is faintly to be glimpsed on the horizon, that I get a little careless….

The snow is in retreat, and in its wake ice, slush, and the creep creep of small evergreen things around the house. The ivy, naturally – it thinks we haven’t noticed it climbing towards the tiles over the bay window…

Viburnum tinus could be excused for being a little miffed. Entirely overlooked in favour of Dawn, the smelly relative (Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’, flowering on bare wood in winter)…

The snow has arrived here, though it doesn’t look as though it will make anything other than a fleeting impact upon the garden; tiny, delicate flakes, drifting about playfully on the air…

It’s been a dreary, rain-soaked day, and the hazel catkins are looking bedraggled. So prolific with their pollen, which must waft upon the wind to find its way to the tiny pink female flowers…