A morning survey of the garden beds out in front of the house close to where the winter bird feeders were positioned, informed me that I'd better get cracking pulling out the results of scattered seeds neglected by the birds and which the warmth of spring has encouraged to spring into life. This year we've got even greater numbers of sunflower seedlings coming up than we'd had last year.

I had allowed a sprinkling of those sunflowers to remain in the garden beds and to mature to flower last summer. Eventually the flowers dried and the seedheads remained, so the squirrels and birds had the opportunity to have a second round of feed; first the sunflower seeds proffered during the winter months, then the resulting flowerheads in late summer.

There are occasional, welcome surprises in the garden, though it's still fairly bare. Clematis vines have begun to crawl upward, and rose bushes have leafed out nicely. The early-blooming Japanese quinces are now flaunting their showy bright-orange flowers. And the magnolia trees have suddenly opened their flower buds, bright magenta, lighting up the landscape in proud display.

The alliums have lifted their stalks and the flower buds have appeared, but not yet opened. The tulips, few as they are in the garden are beginning to wane. In the rock garden the hens'n-chicks nestle close to one another, as though finding comfort in intimate proximity; one of my very most favourite of rock garden succulents. There also the Ladies Mantle are asserting themselves, alongside heuchera and emerging hostas.

The garden is slowly but surely coming to life, bringing its elegant architecture and and colour into evidence as it slowly emerges from deep winter sleep. Pulmonaria is abloom, and so are the clumps of Forget-me-nots, bleeding hearts and Bergenia.