I'm a great believer in "an Englishman's home is his castle" so I have no desire to proscribe gardening style. Equally I look to nature for inspiration and guidance in how I garden and the first comment in relation to the regimental approach above is that nature doesn't "do" bare soil.

West Dean Gardens is joining the Royal Horticultural Society in celebrating National Gardening Week (13 - 19 April). Launched four years ago by the RHS it has grown into the UK's biggest celebration of gardening.

The fruit collection at West Dean Gardens features over 100 varieties of apple and 45 varieties of pears, many of them trained into exquisite traditional shapes. There is, however, more to an apple than a quick bite.

Have you taken a leaf out of West Dean's book and your garden is tickety-boo? Plants firmly pruned, spare pots washed and stacked? Paths swept and seeds sown in a timely manner?

Yes folks, it's official, Spring has sprung! How do we know this? Not because we have passed some arbitrary date such as the 1st of March but because we are gardeners and are attuned to all those subtle, sensory signals that silently but insistently say "Winter is past, the sap is rising, it's all before you, a new growing year awaits.

Yorkshire rhubarb, from the hallowed rhubarb triangle around Wakefield has been awarded the coveted protected designation of origin (PDO) status by the European Commission, prohibiting anyone growing it outside the region from calling it the same. It gives it similar status to Cornish clotted cream and Melton Mowbray's pork pie.

Did you see the naturalised bulbs in action at West Dean during February this year? If you missed the display poor you as it was a sight to gladden any heart.

In 1991, in the aftermath of the Great Storms of 1987, Head Gardeners Jim Buckland and Sarah Wain began a programme of renovating works at West Dean Gardens. They have been the inspirational leaders of the professional garden team, bringing to the place zeal, imagination, deep horticultural knowledge and an ever-growing understanding and enthusiasm for the gardens and its history.

Back in December I was absolutely convinced that my wintersweet (Chimonanthus), a shrub renowned for both its headily-scented winter flowers, and taking its own sweet time to getting around to flowering, was finally about to do the business this year.