Over the past few months I have been doing a lot of thinking. Like most people I have an overwhelming feeling of anxiety about the future. Rules that have, until now, established a general feeling of stability are gone. The New Year enforces change and I was going to face demons in my life. But mundane matters soon cause these to be buried once more. This is not the place, for the time being, to address what is wrong with the world. It won’t do any good. I did, finally, subscribe to The Guardian, putting my money where my mouth is. If your news is free it won’t be independent. I am happy to pay to get news that is not supporting Musk, Trump or other people that think only they have a right to free speech. Like many people who believe in democracy and morality I have a bottle of champagne in the fridge ready for when Trump leaves us all in peace. But I digress.

So I may restart this blog as a boring treatise on plants. The next few days will tell. In the meantime, what have I been doing over winter?

The answer is, not much. The garden is prone to lay wet in winter and it is difficult to do much that is meaningful. I do what I can, plus I have to do things, usually several weeks ahead of usual, for my weekly pieces in Garden News. These can be challenging in winter.

But it did enforce me to plant a bottle garden for one of the weekly jobs. Terrariums are very popular these days but I found it difficult to find small houseplants for the job. I did the trickiest planting with a small-holed demijohn rather than buy a terrarium with a large planting hole. It was a throwback to the sort of things I did 40 years ago!

The run up to Christmas, and indeed Christmas itself, was dominated by Mia. For some reason she had a swollen toe on a back paw that was causing her to limp. We initially thought it was a thorn but the vet found no obvious cause. The next six weeks meant she could not go out, many visits to the vet including her being sedated and having tissue sample taken, a full leg bandage and then the cone of shame over Christmas. Of course, being very slim and flexible, the cone just meant that the only part of her body she could reach was her back paw! It was a trying time – she hates the cone and we hate seeing her unhappy.

So we took it off for Christmas and just watched her like a hawk and stopped her when we found her licking her back paw.

The tissue sample found no problems and she seems a lot better. We may not be out of the woods yet and we still don’t know what the problem was but she is allowed out now. But she seems much happier inside and is her old, beautiful, self.

Tom, the stray, is getting much friendlier and will cuddle as long as we sit there and make a fuss of him.

Of course, winter has had a fair share of winds, wet and cold. We have had some clear nights, great sunsets and pretty severe frosts – enough to cause concern over keeping the greenhouse free of frost.

I decided that the freesias had to spend the winter in the polytunnel this year, planted in the bed. They should be dying back in time for me to lift them to make room for the tomatoes. I like them and I add them to bunches of daffodils at the gate but the original seed resulted in pretty poor flowers. They increase and I was potting about 20 pots of corms which was getting silly. I wish I could get some good corms.

Every year I aim to sow some chicory to force in winter to produce ‘chicons’. I never do. So this year I ordered some roots to force. I get a lot of seeds from France and the firm I use always have some interesting things including three varieties of chicory – I chose the red.. The dry roots look pretty uninspiring when they arrive but I potted them and kept them in the dark. I bring in one pot every few weeks to force in the ‘hot press’ and they have done well.

I love the bitter, sweet crispy leaves and the bonus is that I am keeping the pots and will plant them in the ‘bee bed’ in spring where I hope they will grow and send up stems of lovely blue flowers.

In the garden, snowdrops are starting to open and all the usual suspects are doing their thing.

Plans are well advanced for the cut flowers this year and I have sorted through and potted the dahlias – a little early I know. And I have been buying shrubs to plant in the next few months. The biggest gamble is Toona sinensis ‘Flamingo’ which I desperately want to thrive – time will tell. There are hopeful signs around the garden and, perhaps because of the warm (relatively) summer last year, a magnolia that has only grown bigger for the past five years, is covered in flower buds – about 30. I just hope it has just matured and that this is not a swan song!

chicory, daphne, mia, sarcococca