Here a prune, there a prune

The Sarcococca and I stared at each other. I brandished my secateurs; it puffed itself up just a little more. Dave said this was not a time for "ladies' pruning" and that we were to go in deep. So I did. But it's hard to know where to prune for fear of leaving large holes in the shrub, especially after the heavy snow that has forced a lot of the growth downwards. Still, I managed to cut it back a fair bit and it looked pretty even.

With the sleet turning to snow we were all glad of a restorative cuppa, and afterwards went into the glade to cut back hydrangeas. Some had succumbed to the frost at their tips, but all had lots of new buds appearing. I should have worn thicker gloves, as my fingers were frozen stiff by the time lunch came - something to remember next week.

Throughout the site there are signs of life among the plants, which is extremely cheering. The snowdrops look beautiful and the crocuses are about to flower - one tree on the lawn is surrounded by a circle of them and it looks lovely. Other bulbs are working their way up - still only one daffodil out so far but the rest are almost there, and what look like grape hyacinths too. Many deciduous trees have buds at their tips, some of which are just about to break out, and many of the camellias have begun to flower. But the star of the show today is a glorious Witch Hazel, Hamamelis mollis 'Pallida', which is covered in yellow flowers that you can smell long before you see them. On a gloomy day like today the flowers seem to glow; the whole effect being quite jaw-dropping as you round the corner and see the tree.

Lunch was a jolly affair in the walled garden mess room - Lorraine had met some financial target and so Paul had bought lots of cakes. It's much warmer and brighter in there than it is in our shed, so it was a struggle to leave and put our soggy coats back on. Unfortunately the afternoon's task was to dig up the brambles in the bed to the right of the terraces, and down to the woods beside the ha-ha. The rain didn't abate, and by the end of it we were rather soggy and fed up, although we did manage to get a lot of brambles up. There was quite a lot of fungi around, including a whitish bracket fungus on a fallen log and an orangey brown mushroom in among the leaf litter. I meant to bring some home with me but I left my sample down in the woods.

7.5 hours