In April the tulip is centre stage in many gardens. “In my plot no tulips blow” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson and I can relate. Tulips are one of the world’s most recognisable flowers, found in many people’s homes and gardens. So beautiful -  until they are past their best and flop over in the border in the messiest of ways. Who needs that level of stress? But it is hard to resist their beautiful colours and shapes when the bulb catalogues drop onto the doormat in July.

April is one of the best times of year in my garden.

March in the garden is truly transformational. By the end of the month the snowdrops are over, and the tulips have been joined by anemones and flowering shrubs. Larkspur and peonies are poking through and the roses are growing apace. Burgeoning is a good description. It changes daily but the one constant through the whole of March are the daffodils.

If ever there was a perfect flower for a Welsh woman’s cutting patch, the daffodil is it.