England may deserve its reputation for dreary weather, but it makes up for dismal winters with its slow-dawning, always charming, long-lasting spring.

The first blooms emerged this year in January (January!): dainty drooping snowdrops, too shy to raise their heads. Vibrant crocus followed, in pools of purples and pinks.

Then daffodils took the city by storm.

This week every park is blazing yellow, white, gold, and orange, but the Magdalen Fellows Garden outshines them all: flowers unfolding like silk sheets, spreading like spilled paint over the hills and riverbanks.

“A little piece of paradise,” another visitor remarked to me as we passed each other, both beaming.

The spring flowers may linger as long as May (bluebells have yet to arrive!), after which we will hail the reigning monarch of flowers, her majesty the rose.

Not for nothing is England knows as a nation of gardeners.