My gardening DIARY

MONDAY It’s a joyous day, invariably a sunny one, when the first brilliant yellow flowers of celandines open on the bank behind the house.

TUESDAY The rate at which a good compost heap shrinks is nothing short of miraculous. Even on the coldest days there’s heat emanating from both our oldest heap and the one in the process of being built. This is created by aerobic action, where microorganisms are breaking down all that detritus we’ve piled up in there.

WEDNESDAY Along the length of our native hedge we’ve encouraged a few of the smaller trees to grow up while the rest of the hedge is laid. There are two rowans, a couple of apples grown from pips and a hawthorn.

THURSDAY We’ve been pricking out the first of our half-hardy annuals to produce true leaves – cosmos ‘Purity’ and rudbeckia ‘Rustic Dwarfs’, also some latesown hesperis that will hopefully catch up and give us some highly scented flowers later this year.

FRIDAY We’re planting out the anemones in the ‘Swan’ series, which we’d po ed on last year. These beautiful flowers, bred by Sco ish nurserywoman Elizabeth MacGregor, are pure white with blue on the reverse of their petals or sepals.

SATURDAY Last May we moved several nice clumps of phlox into the raised bed beyond our oak fence. They were really too far on and suffered when it got really hot at the end of May, beginning of June. We’re giving them an extra mulch to encourage strong shoots this spring which we’ll then raid for basal cu ings.

SUNDAY There are still a few

Hydrangea paniculata to prune. We’d left the old flowers as, though brown and dry, they still looked pre y. We’re taking them back to the next bud below the flowers.