Better known for the Great British Bake-Off, but the snowdrops came first: five acres under the beeches, a reputed 73 cultivars, and a queue for the car park that made the pub a mile away look very appealing

It’s winter. I’m not a great one for curling up by the fire with a seed catalogue. Ten books instead: three I reach for at work, three worth reading for the writing alone, and four I look at with deep-seated envy.

Ten rods, roughly 250 square metres, and on the site I visited an eight year wait to get one. A short history of the English allotment, and what three of our South Park Gardens volunteers have made of theirs.

A garden is better for having peaks and quiet times. What flowers in the cold months, what is going on under the leaf litter, and the best argument I know for doing almost nothing in the garden in winter.

Most people are surprised by how long a garden takes and by what it costs. Here is one Surrey garden from first phone call to the third year of aftercare, seven manholes included.

It is very easy to visit Richmond Park regularly and miss this altogether. Deer kept out, azaleas kept in: the National Collection of Wilson 50 Kurume azaleas, at its loudest in late April.

A tiny white flower, and yet. Where snowdrops want to be planted, why I lift handfuls in the green from my father’s clumps, what to grow with them, and five places to see them done properly.