Electric Green

I am nervous. Our loft conversion starts today and there will imminently be a whole bunch of dynamic chaps jumping all over my front garden. When we first got here it was almost entirely paved and inelegantly adorned with a dead fir tree and two nasty Lonicera nitida . I promptly withdrew their planning consent, although one of the loniceras enjoyed a brief reprieve while I tried to clip it into the shape of an ogres head. Since then, I have added a Malus sargentii ‘Red Sentinel’, Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’, Choisya ternata , a Sarcococca (as recommended to me by the late John Cushnie, as it happens), Lonicera fragrantissima and a black bamboo – the general idea being that things that are not evergreen are red, scented, or at least interesting in winter. There are also lots of Narcissus ‘Jetfire’ which are just risking poking their noses out of the ground (just in time to get stomped by a hobnail boot, I shouldn’t wonder) and lavender and purple sage bordering the path. And I only get...

I love the Alps in winter. The Christmas card scenery is glorious (and the fact that, physically, skiing can take you from zero to hero in a week flat appeals as well). But despite floral spring joys to come, a metre of snow renders the place pretty sterile so it was a pleasure to drive back down into valleys clad in an opalescent mist, trees fresh with dusted ice and bearing dense clumps of mistletoe. And fascinating geology, strata of rock like puff pastry all folded and twisted, mistreated and left to petrify. According to Terry Pratchett, any CD left in the car for long enough will eventually metamorphose into a Best of Queen compilation. While this was not strictly the case, as we approached northern France, after about 1300 miles, there was a definite rock anthem theme developing. In fact I think we have a small breeding population. Perhaps if we add Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, or similar, we might get an F1 generation that is rock opera without any need for Andrew Lloyd-Webber…...

It snowed again yesterday. For a while, white clumps hung in the trees like frosted magnolias, but it is now starting to melt. Some real winter flowers like Lonicera fragrantissima are a bit scorched and the Zantedeschia aetheopica has gone all mushy (this never happened in London!) although I expect it will all bounce back. Maybe this year I will actually get around to digging the pond and bog garden I have been planning. The Zantedeschia is in a big pot but it might be more resilient in the ground. It is pretty easy to make a garden look exciting in spring, but January is a different issue altogether. There are some performers though, I need to get a Hamamelis mollis and Daphne bholua (see picture) smells lovely, but it is also poisonous so I might wait until the children are past the chewing things stage. Or see if there is space in the front garden. A couple of jackdaws have been lurking around on the roof, looking suspiciously down the chimneys. The chimneysweep tells me that...

There are plusses to this winter wonderland. The branches of the apple tree are outlined in snow, reaching and twisting like a black and white scribble against the soft grey sky. There are half a dozen goldfinches scrambling around the remains of the lemon balm looking for the little black seeds and the blackbirds are fighting over a bumper crop of pyracantha berries and what remains of the crab apples. It all looks pretty, but I am a bit worried about the birds going hungry (According to the RSPB, a robin needs to consume half its own weight in food each day in weather like this), I keep feeding them and putting out water, but it keeps getting covered in snow. Better hope the Gulf Stream keeps doing its thing. Last week I was in Wales checking out a garden that looks like it might fall to my care. There is lots of stuff there but most urgent was the pruning of some grapevines. I have never owned a grapevine before so it was all a bit of a learning process but my uncle handed me his fe...

When it comes to plants I wear my heart on my sleeve. If I look at something in depth and it fires my interest I want it. Or them. All of them, probably. That one and that one and that one. This can be impractical – Walnut trees, for example. Ancient yew trees. Potatoes. Fortunately, my current passion is for snowdrops. Having recently visited a number of snowdrop gardens including Welford Park , Kingston Bagpuize and the national collection at Colesbourne Park I am now thoroughly converted. Details of my pilgrimage can be found in the Jan 2nd 2010 issue of Amateur Gardening magazine, but it turns out that snowdrops are more than short, white and quite pretty when there is not much else to look at. They are not keen on deep shade (oh!), they have a vast natural variation (really?) and, as I was emphatically told by Colesbourne’s snowdrop supremo John Grimshaw, the planting-in-the-green thing is a myth. Move ‘em in summer, apparently. It goes against everything I have ever been told, bu...

The slimy sprawl of frosted nasturtiums has been consigned to the compost heap and the blackened dahlias need dealing with, but first it is time for houseplant rescue. I’ve done it again. Every year I make a mental note about bringing the houseplants back in from their summer constitutional in the garden - and some of them even made it - but there are always casualties. To be fair, they are a whole lot more hardy than they are given credit for as long as they are well hardened off – even the Christmas cacti have survived frost – but protracted sub-zero temperatures usually spell the end. I learned my lesson the hard way in the very cold snap before last Christmas, but, I thought, it would be rude to inflict the same treatment on them twice. Whoops. The resilience of my asparagus fern is impressive, I had bidden farewell to its blackened stump and wished it well on its journey to the botanical Valhalla…and then got distracted and forgot about it. Phoenix-like, it rose from the ashes to ...

It is cold, drear and can barely be bothered to get light. It is a struggle to get to the allotment and the packets of broad beans and sweet peas that should have been in weeks ago glare accusingly from the shelf. Yet I am finding the handsome row of squash and pumpkins on the mantelpiece is acting as an enduring reminder of the year’s successes. When veg keeps into winter it is a pleasure akin to mainlining The Good Life. An intravenous shot of joy and smugness that warms the cockles like no other. The baby gets creamy squash puree that has been nowhere near a packet. We get squash and green pea risotto. Yum. I have been saving the seeds of the handsome gunmetal blue ‘Crown Prince’ squash and, assuming they don’t get lost, forgotten or otherwise destroyed, I plan to plant them in the spring. But they were grown fairly near the butternut ‘Cobnut’ and a pumpkin (I think it was ‘Mars F1) so it will be interesting to find out how promiscuous they are. Some plants, like foxgloves and helle...