I like to think of the garden table as a stage: something to be dressed, designed and decorated, a small pleasure that’s easily achieved and easily changed with the seasons. A place for reminders of what’s coming soon, what’s flowering now, and what’s usually at our feet rather than at eye level. If your garden is getting out of hand and you can’t see the wood for the trees, your table top may be the perfect place to start.

It’s the perfect weekend for some romantic snowdrop spotting: the countryside is carpeted in small, elegant, Giselle white snowdrops which are the first signs the season is turning and spring will come. Whether you seek the expansive and breathtaking or the rare and ravishing, now is the moment to hunt down snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) in the wild or the glorious gardens of galanthophiles to enjoy their sheer beauty and fragility.

With a hosepipe ban hitting Hampshire to protect the precious habitats of our Rivers Test and Itchen and further bans planned across the South of England, there are steps we can all take to ensure we still have beautiful gardens and safeguard our environment.

If you want more hellebores in your garden, low maintenance, lovely perennials which gently sing from the side-lines and from dark corners during late winter and early spring offering the prettiest of flowers, read on for ideas and suggestions.