I catch myself in the ridiculous position of wishing time away, urging my garden to catch up with the images of other people’s snowdrops appearing day by day on my phone. It’s not a race. It’s not a competition of any sort…

In the world of the houseplant enthusiast, a bicolour leaf seems to be far more greatly prized than such a thing would be in the parallel realm of the outdoor gardener, where variegation is often met with less than universal affection…

Spurges generally don’t get to come into the house. They’re great in the garden – the architectural form of Euphorbia characias with its wonderful glaucous foliage…

I love a Christmas mystery as much as the next person, but today’s has less to do with a body in the library and footsteps in the snow than it does the identity of one particular begonia…

Christmas is wonderful, of course it is, but when the frenzy is done and the motorway miles have been reeled in, a kind of peace descends until the new year…

The camellias bask in the pale golden light of the morning sun, dew beginning to gather and run along the surface of each leathery leaf…

I used to feel a bit sorry for the tree on Christmas day. Uprooted, stuck in a pot, shoved in a corner of a room and bedecked with lights and tinsel and all manner of wotnot while odd human creatures rush about displaying behaviours characteristic of varying levels of stress…

Mild winters make the birds less eager to strip every twig and branch of their convenient energy snacks, and so the sodden late December garden is still punctuated with tiny blobs of deep red…

I’ve been holding out for a frosty end to the year. It looks like I’m going to be disappointed. And yet, now that it comes to it, I’ll happily settle for the festive season that’s just not sodden…

Calocephalus, or cushion bush, or Leucophyta brownii, is a strange and enchanting plant, one whose icy vibes are perfectly suited to a winter window box and wouldn’t look out of place in the landscape of Frozen…

By all that’s good and right and holy, December in this part of the world should be cold and crisp and clear. In my experience, December rarely pays any notice to this doctrine…

I’m a bit of a sucker for a furry plant. I’m also a fan of scented-leaved pelargoniums. A pelargonium with soft, furry stems and leaves and a strong peppermint scent was always going to grab my attention…

For all the work there is yet to do outside, it really does feel as though in early December the garden decides to reward itself with a few weeks off…

That’s the thing about self-seeding plants – you can’t rely on them to self-seed themselves where you want them to. But they are pretty much guaranteed to settle themselves into precisely the wrong spot…

It’s as well I serviced my secateurs recently – they’ve been getting a good workout as my work gardening year draws to a close…

Trees are pretty ruthless about getting rid of parts of themselves they no longer need – leaves jettisoned as soon as they have reached the end of their useful lives…