Beacons of spring

The thought of tulips lighting up next April and May is a beacon of hope that carries me through the grimmest of days

September moves summer gently into autumn. The destination into winter may not be where you want to go, but the journey is always a joy. It is a month of calm, tinged with loss, and that gentle sadness simply intensifies the preciousness of the present moment.

Bulb planting begins in earnest in September but continues busily into October with the one exception of tulips, which wait until November and even December for their planting. Increasingly, I grow bulbs in containers, which means that we are accumulating more and more pots, and the one rule of a good pot is that it must be filled with something most of the time. So scillas, muscari, narcissi, hyacinths, irises and fritillaries are planted in gritty compost, along with pans of winter-flowering pansies and violas.

The larger pots