I have been on another major plant-buying expedition this week over at a wholesale nursery in Herefordshire.

I bought fifty very nice Briza media or ‘Quaking Grass’ which should be nicely in flower for the Spring Gardening Show. However, the plants are still full of last year’s dead leaves which must be removed before they are fit to be seen by the judges.

It took me twenty minutes to just to tidy up one plant yesterday, though it is beautifully coiffured now. I am seriously thinking of holding a ‘Dead Grass Removal Party’ for my friends to get all the plants done – bring your own nimble fingers, drinks supplied. The activity is quite addictive in a way and might make a nice change from knitting as a hobby, but unfortunately I am too short of time to indulge in such a pastime at the moment.

The turned pine poles for the windbreak were a bit of a mixed blessing as well when I collected them from the timber merchant.

‘Would you like them treated?’ they kindly asked me over the phone. ‘Yes please,’ I said without thinking. So when I at last set eyes on the poles they were a sort of crocodile green colour instead of a beautiful natural wood. But after some serious gnashing of teeth on my part, my excellent (and calm) contractor, Kevin Styles, has come to the rescue and we have tested some good wood stains on the poles which cover the nasty green colour. The darker stained poles will also contrast well with the golden stemmed bamboo plants to be set against the windbreak, so I’m feeling pretty chuffed again.

There is more good news on the bamboo front as well. I have tracked down Swing Gate Nursery, tucked away in the hamlet of Upper Hill near Leominster, which specialises in rare and unusual bamboos. Angela Pendleton, the inspired owner, showed me round the lovely Japanese garden she is creating in the nursery grounds to really show off the bamboos. Angela has very kindly agreed to lend me some of her beautiful specimens for the show and they should really give my garden the wow factor. The stems of mature bamboo plants are so sculptural and sometimes so subtly coloured that you feel almost compelled to reach out and touch them. I was particularly taken at the nursery by a bamboo with soft, smokey blue stems – quite out of this world! This bamboo is so new it’s still got just a number, no name.

Meanwhile, in my garden the tulips are starting to come out in their pots, something that I look forward to every year. I enjoy making what I like to think of as a sort of layer cake in my pots. On top of some nice crunchy stones and some rich, homemade compost I plant a layer of tulips, then add more compost, a layer of daffodils, more compost, a layer of crocus and finally fill up the tub to the brim with compost and leave to marinate during the winter months.

If you choose your varieties carefully from early to late season, just one tub of bulbs will give many weeks of beautiful spring colour, each bulb exploding in turn when ‘cooked’, like a timed firework display.