One day last week was bright, dry, and mild and so inviting for a gardener who has been kept indoors by the horribly damp weather. I tidied up the fronts of some of the borders, taking out all the dead and dying material but dared not step onto the soil as the clay is still very wet. On the whole the garden is not looking too bad and the grass was beautifully green and lush.

Just looking around to see what was flowering I found primulas, mahonia, Viburnum tinus, and the delightful Winter flowering jasmine.

I was surprised to see a mauve flower growing out of the picea, which turned out, on close inspection, to be a climbing bloom of Vinca minor.

A small Witch hazel ‘Orange Peel’ is starting to look rather pretty