At a time where almost nothing in our daily experience seems clear cut – even the seasons seem to merge into a confounding jumble - the appeal of a neat edge is hard to over state…

Winter trains the gardener to be keen-eyed in the quest for colour; those flashes of delight that brighten an otherwise sober outlook

It becomes something of a sport around now. You’ve probably already engaged in a spot if it yourself – peering closely at bare twigs for the faintest sign of swelling…

There’s one essential aspect of gardening that receives insufficient attention within traditional horticultural instruction. I refer, of course, to the following question: how do you have your tea?

Stealing time outdoors as the sun goes down, pruning and retying a shrub rose to itself. Some roses are better suited to the Jenny Barnes treatment than others

Could this be the year I finally get around to...? There are so many ways to end that sentence when it comes to my garden…

Up before the hour of the flatulent sparrow, and I have the garden to myself. The plastic tarpaulin – offensively blue under the security lights – quickly laid out in anticipation of a tipper-load of manure…

Crash. The sound of breaking terracotta is distinctive, and one I’ve become quite accustomed to this past year. Even in the relative shelter of the side return to our house…

Scratch the surface of my garden, and all manner of foreign objects begin to reveal themselves. When I first laid out the beds I discovered a 2 metre square patch of glass sheeting, as if someone had flattened a greenhouse and then turfed it over…

In spite of efforts to the contrary, I can feel the gloom of a damp January tugging at the edges of my thoughts…

I have to stay my hand. I am no neat-freak in the garden, and quite possibly the one true king of Leave-it-for-the-Birds Land, but I feel my right hand rise towards the hip where habitually my secateurs can be found…