I am ambivalent about winter – the cold, the wet, the London slush in the place of snow. My garden reflects all of this and more. The absence of colour, dead perennials rotting on the ground with the fallen leaves I am too lazy to collect from the garen, which now seems almost devoid of birds. With the promise of spring and summer just round the corner, isn’t it correct to hate winter?

In fact, I have always been somewhat sceptical of those gardeners who talk about making a garden interesting all year. How? And, more importantly, why? Isn’t it better just to stay indoors by the fire with a warm glass of red?

But, in summer, I also notice our gallant Horse Chestnut trees (Aesculus hippocastanum) ravaged by Guignardia aesculin (aka the ‘leaf blotch fungus’, accidentally brought from the USA about a hundred years ago, no doubt along with the awful grey squirrel), as their leaves turn prematurely brown and wrinkled. While they are not actually dying at the moment, it can only be a matter of time before the debilitating effect of this disease starts to pay its toll.

In short, during cold winters, the fungus is sufficiently culled by the cold not to affect the trees too badly the following summer. However, in the warmer winters that we now must expect (with human-induced climate change), the fungus sails through to damage our trees by late summer.

And last winter (2019/2020) was not exactly cold, so we can expect more of the same – dejected looking horse chestnuts lining our roads, with their leaves a dismal brown.

Whilst my sons love the snow (although they are now a bit big for tobogganing), I have come to hate it. I like it once and I too tobogganed the roads of South London with my mate, Andy, during the freezes of the late 1970s, but London now just produces a light dusting followed by slush a few hours later.

However, the pictures accompanying this article are from the beginning of March 2018 – the last time it ‘really’ snowed in NW10. They show a garden clothed in a layer of snow, strictly speaking at the beginning of Spring, but it looks like Winter ought to be.

And maybe, just maybe, I/we should wish for more of these, if only to save our horse chestnuts. Given the way the world is going and with our politicians not being able to see beyond their next re-election, this may be too much to hope.

But we can hope (and act)…