My gardening DIARY

MONDAY Already the Banksian rose growing on our front wall is showing signs of waking up. Buds are just beginning to swell and you can already distinguish the embryonic spherical flower buds from those that will open later as leaves, more pointed and skinnier.

TUESDAY All last year’s tulips were planted out in rows in the veg garden. Their flowers will be smaller and less strong than the ‘new’ bulbs we’ve planted in pots for our spring display but, with a bit of luck, we’ll get a few bunches of mixed colours and shapes.

WEDNESDAY Before the recent snow and freezing temperatures, we collected up tens of plants si ing around in pots and took them undercover. We’ve started repo ing them into pots just one or two bigger to encourage roots to get growing so that when the weather warms up, we’ll plant them out and they’ll be off to a flying start.

THURSDAY Have been collecting ‘objets trouvés’ around the garden to send to our granddaughter, Sydi. She’s fascinated by snails and often draws pictures of them – usually in families, so there are a few empty snail shells, some hazel nutshells chewed by different creatures, including squirrels, beech nut cases and sprouted acorns, wrapped in moss to grow her own oak forest.

FRIDAY Pulmonaria rubra has had a few of its coral-coloured flowers out since before Christmas and, here and there, some other pulmonarias are beginning to flower, too.

SATURDAY One of winter’s consolations is that it allows you to see the bones of deciduous trees and appreciate their structure. One striking example of this is the pale skeleton of Ginkgo biloba.

SUNDAY In one of the we est parts of the garden, a Chinese woodland plant, Chrysosplenium

macrophyllum, is covering a large area. A form of saxifrage, it looks like a spreading bergenia with ovate leaves and greenish-white flowers.