Gina Parkinson welcomes spring's late arrival.

Spring gardens are beginning to leap into growth and it is a joy to get outside and see what is going on out in the beds and borders.

It's time to bring the garden nearer to the house by filling pots and containers with all the spring bedding available in garden centres and nurseries and placing them by doors and on window sills.

Daffodils and primulas are the obvious choice at this time of year and the dwarf daffodils are especially good for the job. They start early and seem to last for ages, especially if the temperatures are on the low side as they have been for the past few weeks. When they have finished, the bulbs can be planted out in the garden where the foliage will gradually fade before coming up again next year.

Primulas are also good and will cope with almost any situation as long as they don't dry out. More unusual varieties such as the Gold Lace Group and Silver Lace Group are becoming much easier to find and look lovely clumped together in a large terracotta pot or as individual plants in a line or even a group of smaller pots. The flowers of these plants are held in clusters above the soft leaves and have gold or silver-edged petals, the main colour of which varies from pinkish red to almost black.

Once they have finished flowering, primulas can be saved for next year, pot them up and put them out of the way and replant next spring. They will need watering in dry spells and look out for vine weevils who love the roots of these plants.

Another plant easily available is the viola. Like the primula there are many varieties available, but my favourites are the small flowered types that look so pretty dotted about the front of the border among emerging plants. They look just as good in containers and again, like primulas, will cope with sun or shade. There are so many colours available from white through to deepest purple.

Plant violas en masse in wide shallow pots - they don't need especially deep soil - or in troughs, keeping similar coloured plants together for the best effect. After flowering they can be cut right back and fed and watered and placed in a sheltered spot where they will form new, bushy plants and flower again within a few weeks.