Narcissi appear in all their splendid variety.

In which new signs of life spring up all over the garden, including a surprise or two…

In which we discover fragrant sweet violets growing on a bank on ivy.

We have been yearning for so many weeks towards spring…

As autumn drifts into winter, the magical chrysanthemums are still giving us gorgeous bright crops of interesting flowers.

We've had our first frost, which blackened some of the dahlias and sparkled fleetingly on the grass, but it has no effect on the chrysanthemums, which are very tough and just keep on flowering.

I know that we are a flower garden, growing flowers for cutting, and that it takes a great deal of time and energy and focus to carry the thing through and to make a success of it…

We wake up to swathes of mist floating across the valley, and the soft hoots of owls in the lingering darkness - autumn is here.

So much to pick! It is pretty late in the year and we're approaching the end of our flower-picking season, but in the last couple of weeks the garden seems to have surged up with a great wave of flowery bounty for us to pick…

Lovely things are coming out of the garden. One of the very best parts of my job is that twice a week I have to pick flowers for us to bring home and test for vase life, enduring scent, and general appeal in the vase.

The flower beds have burst their banks, and all the floral woven cloths are fraying at the edges, blooms and seed heads and grasses all spilling and tumbling and filling the garden with loveliness.