If Winter is over surely Spring will follow

We have enjoyed a very mild Winter this year. Rarely the temperature fell below C5 [F41] at night. The garden is waking up from its short Winter's nap. The first trees are getting their leaves, Acer ginnala, not as beautiful in leaf as many of the ornamental maples but with wonderful scarlet leaves in Autumn and Betula maximowicziana, the Russian Birch, with larger leaves than the Silver Birch and leaves turning buttery yellow in Autumn.

Gardening at "Kibbenjelok" last weekend, I remarked that the Helleborus were grateful for the gentle Winter conditions. They are standing tall and holding their heads of multiple flowers in purple, green and white, well clear of their shapely leaves. One group had been very active and its offsprings are coloured in all shades of purple through to white. Clumped together, they look like a delicate bunch of flowers. I am pleased with a small clump of double Christmas Roses that are growing lushly. These appeared, quite naturally, a few years ago in a friend's garden. Last year, after four years of my pleadings, she gave in and presented me with a small plant.

I do not always like the results of breeders' endeavours to make flowers bigger, gaudier and double. In many species, the purity of line is lost and, as in modern roses, the perfume that was the charm of the old-fashioned rose is lost, in the pursuit of showiness. Today the Englishman, David Austin, has taken many years to create roses with the old-fashioned look, strong perfume and the habit of the modern rose to flower more than once in the year and be of a hardier nature resisting disease.

This wild seedling of the Christmas Rose is very beautiful. The large flowers with ruffled white petals, like a ballerina's tutu, are suffused with lime green. I love white flowers and with the daubed green colouring to give excitement, they are just my cup of tea. We may learn a lesson from this. If left to Nature and natural evolution, we may see a far better result than we could ever manufacture.

I photographed the lovely winter flowering Iris stylosa [I should write unguicularis, syn I.stylosa but I hate that name and have never understood why the clever ones had to change it] for your enjoyment. These delicate, old-fashioned Irises, brighten the Winter landscape from the middle of that season. The wonderful hue of their flowers, reflect the blue of a sunny Winter's Day. Its demands are little as it prefers poorer soil and likes its leaves cut back so the