Bavarian Brushstrokes

This year the muddy job of landscaping my lowest terrace and the proper winter-weather, have wreaked havoc on the place and there's scarcely a corner that doesn't have a pile of building materials or frost-blackened leaves. In our house I'm second-to-last when it comes to tidiness (just above my nine-year-old son but below Emma who's two) so for me to feel hemmed in by the mess things must be pretty bad.

I've always liked sweeping - the rhythm and swish of the bristles as they bring stone and cold concrete back to their best. In a previous job gardening in a Bavarian hotel, I used to give the 100m drive a weekly sweep. Herr Diegal my German boss was a stickler for tidiness and insisted the drive was brushed the 'Bavarian way'. This meant starting at one end and picking up the leaves etc. as I went along, the idea being that there are no dusty circles left behind; tell-tales of second-rate 'British brushing' when leaves and soil are pushed into piles and then collected. As much as it annoyed me at the time, I've been 'Bavarian brusher' ever since.

After the brushing I swept through the borders raking up leaves stripping the dead foliage from all the hardy plants - a most satisfying job. Winter tidying is like un-wrapping the garden revealing its real shape and getting it spruced up for spring. Although tempting I resisted taking all the dead foliage from tender types - such as the summer flowering echiums, as even dishevelled leaves offer frost protection for the buds. And looking at the weather forecast, boy they'll need it!