Rosie's Back Garden Ideas, Tips & Guides

As we all know there is no «Winter» term at school but I have a 16 year old Japanese ward, Sky, who is at boarding school nearby and whose reports I read. So these have inspired me to decide that the garden and gardener need a report after three plus years (though I haven't had a report for about 40 years). Winter is a hard time to judge a garden but a good one. For me it should still have structure, texture, colour and, yes, scent.

The high and lows at the start of this year have been personal and weather based. Winter was rather good to us here. It was cold enough to kill lots of bugs but was nothing like as wet or windy as my previous two winters. So Spring started well.

The snow this year has been enormous fun, damaging and rewarding. We have been snowed in twice (so far). You should know that it is almost all hills to get out of this village and we are well off the Council’s salting and gritting route. So, unless you drive a tractor or an old fashioned Land Rover (which of course a number do), the roads have been impassable and virtually empty in the snow until one unknown farmer with a snow plough attachment to his tractor, kindly clears some of the roads in the early morning when he thinks the snowing is over.

I had imagined this blog was going to be about the race to flower in May – a catalogue of the first of everything suddenly appearing and the amazing wonders that have been unfolding in the garden every day and sometimes hour by hour. But the most astounding, different and wonderful thing that happened in my garden in early Summer was been the scent.

For the last month or so I have had to resort to earplugs from around 4.30am as the dawn chorus shouts at me through my open bedroom windows and the sparrows squabble noisily in the rose bushes around the bird feeders. The countryside is supposed to be peaceful but, what with the songbirds singing, the starlings and jackdaws squawking on the feeders, plus the constant “beep-beeping” of the farm’s vehicles (they seem to drive all of them in reverse the whole time), trying to sleep beyond 4.30am now requires ear defenders.

Tonight I heard a toad — my first of the year. My heart soared.

We’ve waited a long time for some sunshine and heat. April suddenly delivered both for a few days and got the tulips going, thank goodness. But gosh. So much work to do in a very short time because it has been too miserable to be out there. Spring and I are horribly behind.