April was cold and wet again, the winter’s miserable weather continuing long into Spring. But the floods - at time of writing at least - have at last abated and there is that wonderful sense of the natural world unfurling out into the light.The garden seems not have minded the endless wet and although cold for humans it has in fact been mild with little or no frost so everything is flowering at least 10 days earlier than usual - if not ever.
It is a sobering thought that no one alive has ever experienced a Winter and Spring in the UK as wet as this has been and, as we go into April, there is no sign of the rain stopping. This obviously affects every garden and gardener but, on the up side, it has been mild and everything is growing well.
February in my garden - and most gardens across the UK - was unrelentingly and miserably wet. When it was not actually raining it was muddy, with constant flooding. We were forced to dig up the whole of our Long Walk and lay perforated drainage pipes to try and take away and spread some of the rainwater from our buildings as other parts of the garden were literally saturated and the fresh water had nowhere to go.
There are two kinds of people: those that think of February as the lowest point of the year and those that love it and I am firmly in the latter camp.
February is the month when the garden really starts to come alive and grow even if the weather can be severe and the days are still short. In February something is definitely happening. There is a thrill in the air.
Join BBC Gardeners' World presenter and gardening writer, Monty Don, as he shares his passion for gardens and the unique role they play in human inspiration and wellbeing.
After a thrilling sellout tour in 2022 Monty is heading back out on tour in 2024 where he will share tales from his career in gardening, detail his favourite gardens – both ancient and modern, and reveal how he fell in love with the natural world.