By Mike Bell

There’s one wild plant that you can pretty much guarantee finding in flower, any day of the year – the common lawn daisy Bellis perennis.

The word ‘daisy’, a contraction of ‘day’s eye’, comes from its habit of opening with the light.  What better plant could there be to greet the New Year?

This one was in our garden in Rendall, raising up its head oblivious to the brutal northerly air flow.  It’ll be a few months yet before you could cover a dozen daisy flowers with your foot and call it spring (or is it half a dozen, or even three?), but I’m all the more grateful for its cheery brightness on these short winter days.