The garden: sacred sanctuary, place for scientific study, haven for solitude and thought, or just a space for sociable delights?  Children’s playground, sculpture park?   For me it’s a bit of all of these but especially a private place where I grow plants and sow seeds, weed and exult over a plant I’d thought lost, where I interact with nature and am blissfully at one with it.  I don’t have to talk with anyone.  I put my arms round the birch, my lady of the woods.  Together with plants and trees extending new shoots, I stretch fingers to the sun and yearn for its warmth.  In the...

March 13 The snowdrops are fading, their souls are elsewhere, they no longer speak, only their plump green ovaries glisten above the dry brown petals.  Soon they will go, leaving not a trace as leaves die and fall on the soil.  It was only when I picked some a month back to bring inside, that I realised they had a glorious honey scent. For the moment, I’ve already dug up and replanted some of Ma’s Mules Ears (maybe Armine, or Benhall Beauty?  A thick green band above the bridges) in a position where I can see them from the house.  I broke some, no idea they had dug down so deep.  Nearly all...