Work for the week

Heavy rain is the enemy of early crocus. It washes out their colour and collapses their slim nectar bearing chalices.

Crocus has an extraordinary fresh scent for late winter and early spring. To appreciate it, you often have to live closely with the plants.

WIND continues to batter the garden and the earliest daffodils have to steel themselves if their moment of glory is not to be taken from them. When these eventually finish, the keen gardeners should be able to look forward to a number of extra flushes of bloom on the starry, lemon-coloured jasmine, and to the mysterious pale flowers still showing on Chimonanthus fragrans. Later again, there will be the startling hellebores to admire along with the frail candles of the pretentious crocus.