In a space when it wasn’t raining, I have managed to get out and remove all the old and marked leaves from the Hellebores and now the new flowers are up and beginning to look good – they are such a lovely plant for the winter time. It is important to remove these old leaves as they always get a disease and must not be put on the compost heap.

I have also done a mammoth job in weeding the vegetable garden – I am a great believer in clearing weeds as soon as possible, working on the old adage that ‘one years seed is seven years weeds’ – so remove them before they get the chance to flower.