At this time of the year, starting with the nether end of December, it is with some relief that I tramp around the brown garden. Brown of mud and brown of leaf: that's the way I like it now. A quiet, regenerative sleep fills the air, and only a few red-berried shrubs and winter-flowering things stir the torpor. It's a time when the unstoppable march of the seasons has finally silenced the clamour of summer.
Which isn't to say that I dislike summer: I love it, but it seems to pass in a guilty, frenetic lather. I can never meet the insistent demands of the plants in that period of intense activity. Staking, feeding, planting, weeding, deadheading, tying in, mulching down, potting up, potting on . . . it's never-ending. Unfinished, urgent business piles up relentlessly as the growing-season progresses, and control of my domain gradually slips away. But then, just in time, along comes winter and all is miraculously swept back underground. Time to breathe again. Time to reflect upon the year just passed.
It was a year of upside-down and inside-out weather. Spring, instead of being sodden and stormy, was dry and mild except for a rainy bulge around its middle. Early bulbs were trapped below ground without enough moisture to draw them up. Eventually February's showers, followed by March's warmth, caused snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils all to burst out of the soil together in an indiscriminate bulb-fest.
In late April the warmest spring on record was briefly interrupted by the return of winter. In some parts of Ireland, on the night of April 20th, a vicious frost struck. By the lake in Altamont in Carlow, I saw the leaves on a massive Davidia involucrata, the aptly-named handkerchief tree, reduced to black rags. There were no hankies at Altamont this year.
The warm, dry, Mediterranean May prompted a strict water-conservation policy in my garden - in preparation for the summer drought, which seemed inevitable. Not only was every drop of washing-up water decanted into the borders, a siphon was fashioned to pump second-hand water from the bath into the front garden.
The warm weather had also brought spritely, cute mice to the bird feeder: they sashayed up and down the pole and performed endearing tricks of dexterity. One used to sit in the red mesh bag of sunflower seeds, nibbling contentedly and swaying gently.
And then, as spring passed into summer, the rain came, driving the same mice (or their children) into the house - which put an entirely different complexion on their skittish little presences.
One of the driest springs on record had turned into the wettest summer, in certain areas. Plants put on extravagant amounts of foliage and saw no need to flower with any conviction. Well-fed slugs and snails grew fat and happy, and reproduced enthusiastically in the moist, sunless atmosphere. It was just as well that food crops, especially leafy ones, were abundant and lush.
As wet summer rolled into warm autumn - the mildest on record in some places - many trees and shrubs were thrown out of kilter and were beguiled into a second flush of flowers. In the unseasonable balminess, spring-flowering cherries and viburnum produced confusing blooms on their branches.
And then finally, around mid-November, the first frost hit my garden - although in north county Dublin, just 25 miles up the road, frost came in the last part of October. Shorter, colder days brought a stop to the galloping growth, forcing the garden to wind down and wither. Thank goodness the same forces that caused it all to spiral out of control in the summer have now seen fit to call a halt. And, just like that, it no longer matters that I never tied in the yellow-belled Clematis tangutica, deadheaded the day lilies or managed to plant out that last crop of lettuce sitting in the seed tray. All have miraculously vanished. All omissions are forgiven and forgotten, and all that matters is that the garden, under my shaky stewardship, has pulled through another year. A blanket of snow would be nice now, just to give it a final tidy touch.
But, the reprieve is short, because waiting in the wings, tightly-packed sheaves of grey-green snowdrops force their way through the soil. They say it's time to start all over again. Time to get planning and sowing for the year ahead. And hoping and dreaming too. For nature is kind, it always gives you another chance to get it right.