First signs of snowdrop flowers. Small but perfectly formed. There’s scope for lots more, particularly round large herbaceous perennials, like thalictrums, which have now been cut right back.

First frogs seen in pond. A cwtch of three.

It looks very good at this time of year. It’s a shame it’s dull in winter. Could I grow bulbs through it?

See also March 18, June 17

The three pots of tulips planted last autumn have done very well.

But so have the three planted 18 months ago. They’ve certainly done much better than those planted in the beds.

One of the new pots of tulips. Very successful. The arabis is nice too.

The Tête-à-Tête bought from the garden centre 18 months ago have done particularly well, even in their second year. The miniature narcissi bought and planted last autumn are also looking good.

Amazing! They’re coming back after all the wet weather.

See also Nov 17

Ideally I should cut these back and remove the cat protection to reveal the glorious bulbs underneath, but of course there aren’t any because when they should have been planted the nepeta were in full song. Solution: raise bulbs in pots and plant these out now? Supermarket bulbs in pots are not really big enough, but they may be better than nothing this year.

9 Feb 18

I planted 6 sprouting plants each of ‘Tête-à-tête’, ‘Minnow’ and ‘Jetfire’ from Homebase. Each plant consisted of at least two bulbs. Also some dwarf viola bedding.

30 Mch 18

Very good result, particularly considering all the frost and snow we’ve had this year.

The snowdrops I planted in the green last spring are small but healthy. These positions, especially under the hydrangea, should be suitable for some time. I should choose a few more spaces which I’m going to retain for spring bulbs and add some more snowdrops there.

All the lower leaves fell off cleanly, leaving these two. They look slightly odd, but they seem to be healthy and are not shading the bulbs beneath, so I’ll try leaving them

8 narcissus ‘Dutch Master’ and 10 narcissus ‘King Alfred’ planted in the middle of B2. Very late, but hopefully better than not at all.