Lavenders are herbs that are wonderfully aromatic, producing flower spikes during the summer months and becoming ‘bee magnets’ giving bees a real feast of pollen in summer. They are also very colourful when in flower, highly perfumed, tactile and versatile plants that can be grown from seed, cuttings or bought ready to plant out.

They make great low growing hedges, look lovely planted in flower or shrub borders and containers. For a contempary look they can be clipped and shaped into a ball.  Their flowers can be used for cooking, pot pourri, insect repellent and oil.

Very popular lavenders are the English lavenders Lavandula angustifolia ‘Munstead’ and ‘Hidcote’. The first has a nice compact growth habit with narrow grey green leaves and produces masses of small fragrant purple-blue flower spikes from July. It grows about eighteen inches in height with a spread of about two feet.

The latter is a little slightly larger than ‘Munstead’, with a compact habit, silvery grey leaves and fragrant deep purple flower spikes. They both need moderately fertile, well-drained soil in a sheltered sunny position. They’re fairly drought tolerant, but will need to be watered regularly until established. To keep them looking good cut back by about half when the flowers fade in late summer, in spring they can be pruned down a little further where there is new growth.

There are lots of lavenders including varieties bearing pink or white flowers.

French lavenders are very pretty and tend to flower earlier than the English lavenders. Their flowers are bigger and bolder with bracts at the ends that look like little ears. Unlike the English lavenders they only need a light trim after flowering and are a little tenderer.

If you intend to dig out an old ‘past its best’ lavender at the end of the summer why not leave it with its flower spikes on so the goldfinches might enjoy the little seeds during the winter.

Some colourful compact clump forming hardy perennials are the heucheras and x heucherellas. They make excellent plants for perennial borders, shady areas when plant choices sometimes feel limited and they make good container plants too.

Heucheras are evergreen or semi-evergreen with colourful maple-like leaves and multiple stems of little flowers. Some flower stems stand out more than others depending on the variety and can be removed if the plant is only being grown for its foliage colour. They all like fertile well-drained soils and will suit situations from sun to part shade.

These versatile low growing perennials make excellent ground cover plants, the fabulous foliage colours and shapes contrast beautifully with other low growing plants like pulmonarias, hellebores and aquilegias.

Heuchera ‘Obsidian’ is probably the darkest of the Heucheras, with its very dark purple, almost black foliage and tiny cream bell flowers in early summer.

H. ‘Marmalade’ looks amazing with its lovely rich amber foliage and pink leaf underside. From May to June it has small red flowers. This one’s suitable for a sunny site as well as part shade.

My favourite is H. ‘Ginger Ale’, with its wonderful mix of ginger-yellow and pink foliage. It bears crimson caramel flowers from July and is great for a sunny or very shady place making it very versatile.

x Heucherella is an intergeneric hybrid of the Heuchera and Tiarella and displays some of the characteristics of both plants; hence it has an x before its genus name to show it’s a hybrid.

H ‘Brass Lanterns is very pretty with vibrant brassy gold and red foliage in spring, later turning to shades of rich chocolate during winter. From June to July it produces stems of white frothy flowers resembling the flower stems of the Tiarella, ideal for part shade.

H. ‘Tapestry’ is another little stunner with maple-like shaped leaves of blue-green with very deep markings of dark purple and silver highlights along the leaf veins. Slender stems of little pink flowers appear from late spring to summer; this one’s suitable for part shade.

After seeing how the clematis that I’ve previously planted thrived and flourished last year I’m going to dig up a few that haven’t progressed much and improve the soil further, replant, then target extra water to all my clematis as the year progresses.

Clematis are wonderful and versatile plants that look great in a variety of situations. I think they look best more natural growing up through trees and shrubs, but they will also look great trained on rose arches, pergolas, fences, trellises and some will suit containers. By choosing varieties carefully it’s possible to have clematis flowers for about ten months of the year.

They like their roots in the shade, are best planted a couple of inches or so deeper giving the roots a little extra protection as well as helping the plant to survive and regrow should they get Clematis wilt or eaten by something. Its best to soak the plants roots in water for about twenty minutes or so, giving time to dig a hole about eighteen inches deep and across, if it’s clay soil break it up and loosen the inside edges of the hole before planting and back filling with peat or compost. Plants can be fed with a specialist clematis food, tomato food or rose food during spring or early summer, the soil should be moist before feeding.

Clematis that have lavender, pale pink or stripy flowers will brighten up any dull north facing situation whereas purples, reds, blues and whites will look great for a south facing aspect.

Smaller varieties such as Cezanne, Angelique andPicardywill suit containers, low fences or shrubs. The very low growing ‘Bijou’ and ‘Filigree’ would suit a container, basket or flower bed.

I’ve picked out a few beautiful varieties to plant in my garden, can’t wait until the weather improves again for me to get stuck in planting.

Although I don’t have any room left to plant any larger plants I can still go vertical using some more climbers, however I shall need some alpines to soften the edges of the stone circle and path because I don’t like hard edges. I will plant some alpines right up close to feet of my garden seats too so they look as if they are situated amongst the flowers.

Colourful carpets and clumps of spring flowering alpines and rockery plants look very pretty and are really effective at softening edges, filling gaps, tumbling over tops of walls and looking great planted in rockeries and containers too.

Saxifrage is a large genus of perennial plants and a lot of them are alpines, a popular mossy type is Saxifraga ‘Peter Pan’. A pretty compact evergreen plant that has mossy looking green foliage, forming a mound covered with pretty little red flowers in spring. It’s only a few centimetres high, likes moist but well-drained in sun or part shade. To keep it tidy it’s best to prune after flowering. There are a few of these types with pink or white flowers to suit any garden.

Rock cress like Arabis alp. caucasica ‘Snowcap’ is another good spreading alpine that will form a dense mat over time. It likes dryer ground, well-drained soil and in a sunny position. Both S. ‘Peter Pan’ and A. ‘Snowcap’ have the R.H.S. Award of Garden Merit.

A well known Saxifrage is ‘London’s Pride’, this one flowers during summer and is a good spreader it also comes in a variegated form and there as some others that have smaller foliage and more compact.

The ground cover plants were hidden except for a Hellebore hybrid. It’s a few years old and has lovely pink nodding flowers, I could it see all the way from my kitchen window. When the snow had gone I could see the others, white flowers with pink speckles on the inside and more with creamy flowers. I was happy to see a few self-sets flowering for the first time too, they’ve taken several years to flower.

As a keen and passionate gardener I think time flies, its midwinter and like many other gardeners I’m working and looking ahead to the next season and the next. It’s amazing how quickly some plants are already surfacing and filling out. The snowdrops and pulmonarias are flowering, the Cyclamen coum have spread and grown into larger clumps. The wild primroses that I divided last year and planted around have suddenly appeared from nowhere. I know it won’t be long before they will show off their little creamy flowers with yellow centres; looking so clean and fresh.

I can see where all the spring bulbs are growing now and it’s my last opportunity this season to plant some more. They’re on sale growing in pots ready to plant and boost my spring display. I’ve chosen a pretty little Irise called Iris histrioides ‘Lady Beatrix Stanley’; its fragrant royal-blue flowers with white flecks have a touch of the exotic to me and I always love to see the larger irises later in early summer.

I’ve also picked out some daffodils because in my garden they all have yellow petals so I’ve chosen some short varieties with white petals and yellow cups, these should fit in nicely. Narcissus ‘Jack Snipe’, ‘Minnow’ and ‘Canaliculatus’, all look really pretty and will grow to about fifteen to twenty centimetres high and will fit in perfectly with the other plants there. The first two have the R.H.S. Award of Garden Merit.

If you’re feeling the cold and looking for some inspiration here are a few plants to look forward to this year. Hebes are always a popular little plant and particularly good for filling containers or borders with low growing plants. A new introduction reminds me of my favourite pudding ‘Rhubarb and Custard’. This hebe has a rounded habit, typical hebe leaves, but with a lovely variegation of cream, pink and green. The leaf margins are cream with the outer edge pink and will produce pretty lilac flowers in June and July. It’s going to be a real eye catcher and has disease resistance to mildew and leaf spot. I imagine it will be a good contrasting plant to other low growing shrubs in a border or make a good container plant.

I have a couple of varieties of bergenias in my garden; they make really good low ground covering plants. One that has caught my attention is called Bergenia ‘Lunar Glow’; it’s the most colourful bergenia I’ve seen. The juvenile shiny evergreen foliage emerges creamy yellow in spring, gradually maturing to yellow-green in summer followed by a blush deep red from autumn onwards. The dark pink flowers that appear in spring really stand out against that yellow foliage. It will look great in flower beds, borders or even a container.

If your garden doesn’t include flowers how about the architectural plant Astelia nivicola ‘Red Devil’. This form has neat and attractive burgundy-red arching, sword-like leaves that become darker in colder weather. It needs moist, but well-drained soils in sun or partial shade and would look great in a container or part of a planting scheme.

How about a real taste of summer? If you like growing your own then this everbearer strawberry called ‘Buddy’ is a must. It flowers from April to September and produces a big crop of long-lasting delicious strawberries from June till October. It’s hardy and is already showing good disease resistance.

A task completed earlier this year was a pathway of paving slabs with a stone circle at the end followed by some spaced out slabs creating a way through a line of shrubs in front of my woodland/wildlife garden. I also laid stepping stones during late autumn in the new border that I planted up earlier in the year.

The woodland garden has a path shaped like a horseshoe with a path cutting across it in the middle giving me a little walk about and easy access to the bird feeders. Everything is much more accessible now allowing me to tackle jobs that I would normally leave for dryer ground.

The garden doesn’t look as ‘dead’ as it usually does this time in winter. The extra evergreens that I added are making a difference.

The extra rain last year has my bamboo Phyllostachus aurea, a climber Fatshedera x lizei and shrub Elaeagnus x ebbingei ‘Gilt Edge’ looking  really well and lush, they are next to each other and the different foliage colours, shapes and especially the brightness of the Eleagnus contrast beautifully. They are near the poplar trees, are evergreen and usually suffer a little during summer with competition for water from the trees, but not last year.

To increase my plant population last year I divided pulmonarias, wild primroses, geraniums, irises, Primula auriculas, geraniums, day Lilies and brunneras, transplanted young aquilegia self-sets. They have all bulked up through the year and are there’s less bare soil.

I’m sure my garden sounds large, but it isn’t, just full, busy and gradually maturing. This year’s plan is to plant more bulbs, climbers, seating, couple of water butts and finish off anything that wasn’t completed last year because of the rain.

I’m often asked about the difference between narcissi and daffodils, there isn’t anything physical. Narcissus is the horticultural term and Daffodil the common name.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re short or tall, they’re like rays of fragrant sunshine on a spring morning and I’m sure there’s a variety to suit any garden.

The first daffodils that I planted in my garden were a species variety called ‘Rip Van Winkle’. They’re short stemmed only growing to about six inches with bright yellow double flowers. The petals are thinner than most other daffodils making the flowers look ragged and quite unusual from the typical daffodil shape. I planted mine in a container at first and after a few years transplanted them into the ground after flowering.

Another favourite is ‘Jetfire’, also a short stemmed variety, but this one has the most perfect bright yellow daffodil flower head but with an orange cup.

It’s amazing how many different daffodils there are, some quite unusual like Narcissus poeticus recurvus ‘Pheasant’s Eye’. This is an old late flowering variety that’s very fragrant and grows to about sixteen inches, with a creamy yellow cup that is thinly edged with red and surrounded by white reflexed petals.

Narcissus ‘Wisley’ has a lovely fresh yellow cup with white petals that are reflexed; it grows to about fourteen inches.

A very early flowering dwarf daffodil is ‘Spring Dawn’, it can flower as early as January with a soft lemon cup surrounded by white petals giving a much needed splash of colour at the end of winter.

When planting daffodils its best to wear gloves because the bulbs can irritate the skin. They need well-drained soil in sun or partial shade and planted at a depth at least twice the size of the bulb and a similar distance apart. It’s important not to plant too shallowly otherwise you may not get flowers. After flowering, remove the dead flowers, add a slow release fertiliser like bonemeal and let the leaves die down naturally.

There was a time when a tulip bulb could cost the price of big house, thank goodness that’s history and now you can buy a potful for the price of a few bricks.

There’s over a hundred different species and a few thousand varieties, so plenty of choice. It’s amazing how different they are from each other, and some have unusual shapes. There’s so many that they’ve been divided into 15 groups of similar flower forms, flowering times and height.

Tulip ‘Queensland’ has really caught my attention; it’s a short stemmed variety with a very full blousy pink flower with fringed petals, not a typical tulip shape.

‘Peppermint Stick’ is a striped tulip of red and white, grows to about 10 inches in height, it would look good in a group in a border and naturalise.

‘Ballerina is a fragrant tulip that has shapely pointed orange petals and grows just under two feet.

Most tulips are short lived and will only be good for a couple of years before needing to be replaced, there are some species tulips that will last longer and naturalise.

Plant them in well-drained soil or else the bulbs will rot, in a sunny position although they will grow in partial shade where the flowers will last a little longer. Like roses its best not to plant new bulbs in the same spot as others have been previously in recent years to avoid disease. If they are not for naturalising dig them up when the leaves fade, clean and store until autumn for planting out again. A simpler way would be to grow them in pots and put them in place as they are ready to flower giving instant splashes of colour where needed.