Gardening may be an anathema in dark Winter when it screams a gale and the ground is sticky wet, but, as Josephine Nuese of The Country Diary said “thinking gardening starts in Spring and ends in Autumn misses the best bit – the dreams in January”.

Best snuggle into a cosy corner then, watch the rain lashing the windows and gaze mindfully into your patch and wonder, cogitate and dream for the coming warmth. It’s a time when there is no holding back, imagination roams feral. Hoover up the seed catalogues, be tickled by the garden photo-porn, hell, throw caution to the wind and toy with an unfamiliar vegetal mistress. For anything is possible in the garden in January.