I always have them waiting in the wings, having planted them earlier in ones, twos and threes in small plastic pots.

This means that when needed for a good show they can be tipped out into bigger and better-looking pots, windowboxes and other containers, which could already have a more permanent planting of evergreen ivies or perhaps clipped box.

Sometimes, where there's space, or if their brittle roots have become too hard to extricate without damage, I simply bury them up to the neck still in their little pots, so that it looks like they're actually growing there.

This latter is particularly useful with temporary bulbs, such as most tulips and specially prepared Christmas paperwhite narcissi, which are very unlikely to flower again the next year, or any year in the near future, if at all.

When they are finished, you just whip out the little pots and hey presto, there's a nice new hole waiting to be filled with the next best thing coming into season.

Obviously if you want certain longer-life bulbs . . . such as other daffodils, crocus, snowdrops, small iris, scilla and so on . . . to become naturalised in the garden, you can tip those out of their little pots straight into either grass or some titivated and welldrained garden soil where they will prosper and multiply.

Bulbs waiting in the wings like this can also be brought indoors to flower and this is particularly rewarding when they are beautifully scented.

The best time to bring them into the house is just as their flower buds are starting to show colour.

Then they open swiftly and strongly in the warmth and can be admired and enjoyed by all who pass through.

Q & A

In relation to the bulbs of paperwhite narcissi . . . those that are sold specially prepared with hormones to induce them to flower all around Christmas time . . .

more than one reader has asked if they bloom again next year if planted in the garden or in refreshed potting compost.

The answer is no, at least not in my experience, as it seems that the amazing, hormone-induced display they give for so many weeks in winter leaves them exhausted and depleted.

However, in subsequent years they do sometimes produce leaves to show that they're still there, but to date I have never known them flower again, or not for me.

Maybe over time and given perfect growing conditions they'll make it back to flowering size and reappear some time in the future, but I suspect they've gone away completely, their atoms dispersed in some underground nirvana.

In Flower Now

Even the most avid gardener's senses can be dulled by being so much indoors in winter, but a quick trip along the garden path to sniff and then snip a bit of something sensationally scented will soon get the pulses racing again.

So what could possibly entice us out to prowl in the mizzle and drizzle of the bare mid-winter garden . . . at a time when we must not stand much on the beds and borders, when we must work even on fine days from the confines of hard surfaces, of boards, of footpaths, terraces, yards and slippery wooden decking . . . if not the promise of pleasure?

Sometimes in bare midwinter though, the garden can smell only of the cold, and when you lean to sniff at a normally divine Viburnum fragrans or a sweet box, or an early snowdrop or pale Algerian iris, there is nothing, only the acid smell of cold, until you bring them into the warmth of the house. Then, they yield up their treasures, their extraordinary scents, some lush and almost overpowering like that of the insignificant looking Sarcococca, others impossibly sweet, and yet another, the Algerian iris, which you pick in fragile bud and then watch as it unfurls its exquisitely veined lavender-blue flags, smelling deeply pleasant and surprisingly fresh, as a primrose does.

A notable exception is the Wintersweet, currently known as Chimonanthus praecox, which is quite capable of scenting the coldest winter air for yards around. Wintersweet is not famous for its looks but for its wonderful scent.

The form Luteus is better looking, with broader petals, of lighter yellow, but is not equal to the species in scent.

It can be wall-trained, likes a warm, western aspect to ripen its twiggy, greyish wood and will flower well in poorish soil.