The first spring here revealed the extent of the garden around the house. A bright blue line of muscari along the path to the front door and a bolt of daffodils pushed up tight against the hedge where the grazing became too tight for the cattle. I came to rather like the muscari since they were out on the day my father first visited. We pulled him from the car and corrected his balance and for a moment, as he took in the breeze and the view, his jumper was a perfect match. He liked a bit of colour and was never afraid to use it, but I learned quite quickly that it is a medium that has to be used judiciously on our hillside.

The daffodils are a case in point. Compare them to the pinpricks of golden celandine or pale primrose that pepper the very same hedgerow and you quickly see them as an unnecessary distraction that sits uncomfortably in scale and intensity. We picked the large golden florist’s daffodils planted by the previous owners to enjoy their earliness inside and resolved to trial any new ones in pots before committing them to the grass.

Snake’s head fritillaries, cowslips and dandelions at Clattinger Farm, Wiltshire 

Come the first two weeks of April, with the first of the cherry blossom billowing, the snake’s head fritillary will be pushing above the fresh shine of new grass. It is of some debate whether Fritillaria meleagris are actually native to Britain – some say they were introduced by the Romans – but they have a number of secure strongholds in this country and, if you can find the time to visit one, you will never forget it.