Seven months since the last blog post and it is Winter again. It is cold, but not barren; the garden is not just its bare bones – there are already hellebores, snowdrops and even an optimistic primrose or two in flower. The frosts knocks them down every so often, but so far they have just popped up later. All of them have been quietly doing my job for me: increasing their numbers from the one or two original plants and a sprinkling of bulbs in a dark corner to splashes of colour almost the length of the border . Not a label or a name to identify them by now, but they are very welcome in this obdurate month when the light lasts longer each day, but Spring isn’t even close.