My first week fully back at work since the end of year break, exhausting! Yet working mostly from home gives me time to notice the garden, and with oddly mild weather again, there are lots of things growing. Here’s my #SixonSaturday.

I’ve been taking the odd hour to do a spot of ground clearing, it really is time to do it, because when I do, little joys appear, right low down near the ground, like my very first snowdrop of the year.

Whilst the garden clearing is going on, I’ve been accompanied by a helper who gets a little more keen, and a little closer, every day. It’s now quite hard not to stand on him/her, although I think (s)he’s more vigilant than me, so probably won’t get squashed.

Whilst footling around in the earth and leaves, I found the promising buds of my favourite deep purple hellibore. Another week or two from flowering perhaps?

Moving into the 0 – 0.5m zone, sarcococcus are fruiting, and now flowering too, with the flowers producing the almost-too-rich, yet still-smells-in-cold-shade scent that I think I like.

Into the 2-3m zone for promising buds on my favourite shocking pink rhododendron. This won’t flower until May.

Look up to 3-4m, the apple trees are not yet in bud, it’s time to prune them. This one is a cooker, a tree that looks like it may have been planted when the house was built (about 210 years ago!). It’s trunks are variously cankered, yet most year’s it gives us month’s work of fruit for a sweet-sour juice. What a wonderful plant.

That’s my #SixonSaturday this week. Chin-up folks, take some time to explore what’s around you in the garden and do look up. Don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.