A year in the garden. As winter takes hold it's a good point to look back on the year that's gone. The Hellebores (our native H. foetidus) were already flowering in January followed by the Snowdrops in February which carpet the back of the garden.

 After the Snowdrops came the snow...

 The early flowers caught in the snow were tough enough to merely go to sleep and emerge when the snows began to melt like this these Crocuses.

 Soon enough the heralds of spring were going strong, daffs in particular.

 Apple blossom is a sure sign that spring is underway.

 Readers of this diary will know that I don't think there's much distinction to be made between weeds and wildflowers. Garlic Mustard always pops up here and there but this year for some reason it had colonized everywhere there was a bit of bare earth. That's fine by me- free plants and the fresh leaves are tasty with a bit of bread and cheese.

 As our long hot summer got underway the garden quickly filled out with flowers, flowers and more flowers (which means bees, bees and more bees). Some might say it's untidy but a layered, successional planting of hardy plants that grow, spread and seed freely is manna for me.

 One notable development this year is that the garden has become somewhat lighter and brighter. The neighbours on the north side decided to remove an evergreen Holm Oak and a large but ailing cherry tree fell down in the neighbouring garden on the south side. Foxgloves for example have never done particularly well in the past but this year they flourished.

 By mid-summer the drought had begun to bite (I don't use a hosepipe, in fact don't have one). Trailing Bellflower didn't seem affected and produced a mass of starry blue flowers as always whereas Herb Robert turned an intense shade of red before withering. NB these are two other plants that gardeners routinely treat as weeds yet this chance combination of colours was one of the most striking things I saw in the garden all year.

By late summer the garden was well and truly parched.

 In September we had some rain and it's amazing how quickly the outlook became lush and verdant again.

 When autumn got underway most of the flowering was done but a few plants -Asters for example- go out in a blaze of glory.

 In some ways though autumn is even more colourful than summer. The Sumach tree is a case in point. 

 By November the garden was a mass of fallen leaves- damp, decaying, delicious to the senses.

 Even in December hope springs eternal. The tips of the Snowdrops are pushing up through the soil and thus the cycle continues.