Most winters the view is one of hope and anticipation as pots filled with mud and borders covered in leaf litter, quietly bide their time, girding their strength for that burst of activity in March and April.
No, not this year.
The winter has been, as I feared, exceptionally wet, windy and dark, but the temperatures have hovered above freezing and for periods, hit double figures. Plants are confused and my garden is showing evidence of that.
With shrubs forming green buds and swelling them in readiness for opening, Spring bulbs are either flowering or reaching a point where they are considering opening.
But where are the pollinators? Still hibernating? Have you seen any bumble bees out and about?
Nature is out of sync.
The flowers are there, not to look pretty for our edification but to attract the insects so they can pollinate them, so start the process of regeneration for the next season of plant.
The insects are paid in food which they in turn use to feed themselves whilst creating the next generation of their species to start the process again the following year.
It's a win-win process, each relying on the other to be there at the right time.
And that's the rub. This isn't the right time. It might be nice for us to see a bit of colour during such a monochrome month but we contribute nothing to the survival of future generations of that plant. Society's attitude is, 'when it dies I'll get another one'.
What of those early bumble bees? The ones we need to survive so plants are propagated? Will they just starve to death having survived a series of months with no food?
I open my kitchen blinds and enjoy the Spring flowers. They give me great pleasure.
But I also worry at the mismatching of timings between their arrival and insects emerging.
I worry for our survival as a species, as we witness the extinction of insects most of society either ignore or do not worry about, not realising their unique contribution to our own food supplies in the supermarket today.
I make a cup of tea and think; before pollination by insects there were only grasses, a very nutrient poor landscape for omnivores like us.
I turn and make some breakfast.