My garden tends to be at its best in the spring; East Anglia is dry in the summer, and Cambridge, being in the middle of the area often misses out on rain that reaches the west and the east, so by July or August the grass is usually burnt brown and the plants look tired. I like to collect seed, so many plants are left with ripening seedheads and while some are attractive, others simply increase the impression of dryness and loss of vigour. My beautiful pond shrinks as the sun and the heat drink it up, and the heat along with waves of pests and weeds sap my enthusiasm!

But in the spring the garden is green and eager and so am I. I study my pots of seeds in the greenhouse each day looking for the first signs of germination, and outside I watch for the early bulbs to show and to flower, for the plop as I cross the bridge over the pond which tells that the frogs have returned to breed, for the buds on the trees to swell and then burst and for the early flowering herbaceous plants to show new growth after their winter sleep.

Among the earliest flowers to appear are the small bulbs. Iris reticulata are planted in the terrace beds just outside the conservatory door where they give me almost the first sign that spring is coming. Dwarf narcissus are also planted near the house to encourage me that winter is not endless and the jewel colours of crocus brighten the grass under the trees.

Iris reticulata

Narcissus Tete a Tete

Crocus tommasiniana

Primroses and violets grow wild in most of the beds; for most of the year they are rather rank and untidy, but the spring is their season and they are so pretty then that I am reluctant to pull them out later. In the front garden the violets are white flowered but those at the back are all the more usual purple. Viola sororia Freckles is a more refined plant forming a fairly neat clump of fresh green leaves and its flowers of palest blue flecked with dark blue are charming. Like many violas it produces seed pods but no flowers later in the year.

Viola sororia Freckles

Common violet

Several euphorbias are evergreen and in the spring a distinct bud starts to form at the end of each stem; after a few weeks these straighten and open to give flowerheads dominated by brilliant green or gold bracts. Euphorbia characias wulfenii is one of these, a large and stately plant it remains a feature of the curved border throughout the year.

With their large leathery evergreen leaves, bergenias are useful throughout the year providing good ground cover and acting as a foil to other foliage and flowers. Many of the named varieties have reddish leaves which are at their best in the cold days of winter, but in my garden none of them can match the species, Bergenia cordifolia for spring flower. The hellebores and Iris stylosa also have evergreen foliage, that of the hellebores being particularly striking and in late winter and spring they come into their own with delicately coloured and marked flowers.

Bergenia cordifolia

Helleborus orientalis

Iris stylosa

Sometime in March, as I walk down the garden and cross the bridge over the pond I will see a flurry in the water or hear a plop, and I will realise the frogs are back. A few days later the first clumps of glistening eggs each with a black dot at its centre appear. The frogs continue to mate and lay eggs for two or three weeks. Watching through binoculars from the house I can often see ten to twenty males waiting with their heads above water to catch a female and squabbling over the best places.