Spring razzmatazz

If you need some inspiration head down to Oxford Botanic Garden and have a stroll along their Spring Walk. The path meanders along the river before arriving at the Bog Garden.

The simple repeat-planting scheme, set under a woodland canopy, will provide you with lots of plant combinations that are soothing on the eye.

One of the freshest spring combinations is acid-yellow and blue. The bright lime-yellow bracts of Euphorbia polychroma provide neat, low-growing, almost-evergreen mounds of foliage and flower and this is probably the brightest spring-zing plant of all. Though do beware of the milky sap. All spurges (or euphorbias) are relatives of the rubber plant. They ouse an irritating white latex that can blister the skin and harm the eyes. Long sleeves and goggles are a must when pruning or handling these plants.

The long-lasting bracts of E. polychroma will provide weeks of spring-zing colour and you could also use the spring-flowering umbellifer Smyrnium perfoliatum in the same way. This biennial has bright yellow-green flowers and equally zingy perfoliate leaves. It also tolerates deep shade, lighting up dank areas.

These sulphur-light shades can be set against the starry blue flowers of Brunnera macrophylla. But you could also use some of the small blue bulbs and many self-seed creating a swathe of colour. They include the cobalt-blue, April-flowering Scilla siberica and the slightly earlier and lighter blue Scilla bifolia. But blue hyacinths or deep blue pulmonarias, like Blue Ensign, (a pulmonaria with gentian-blue flowers and plain-green leaves) would work equally well. Blue Ensign enjoys damper conditions than most pulmonarias. But there are also good blues with spotted leaves that are more tolerant of drier shade. Lewis Palmer and Bertram Anderson are both excellent.

You could also use the purple form of our native wood spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides Purpurea' and this would give an arching crook of lime-green flower set against beetroot-red leaves. The equally handsome Euphorbia x martinii has a soft-green bracts studded with tomato-red stars. All prefer drier conditions in semi-shade or more-open positions.

Soft pink and apple-green is another, even subtler colour combination. Here a mixture of spring-flowering viburnums with scented, apple-blossom pink flowers frame apple-green hellebores. You could plant the handsome-leaved sprawler H. argutifolius if you've room, or the more upright, small-flowered H. foetidus. Both look stunning in the Spring Walk.

There are several varieties of viburnum worth planting for dappled overhead shade. V. x burkwoodii and V. x juddii are both gentle shrubs with branching stems of soft-pink flowers. The showier V. x carlesii will give you almost globular flowers, although it can be trickier to grow. Touches of deeper pink are provided here by Ribes sanguineum, the flowering currant. But deep-pink lily-flowered tulips could work equally well. China Pink' is the just the right shade.

The Oxford Botanic Garden is Britain's oldest botanic garden, the peaceful eye at the centre of Oxford's storm. A visit has so much to offer throughout the year.

Annual passes to the Oxford Botanic Garden cost as little as £10 or you can pay a once-and-only fee at the gate. Admission is £3 for adults, £2.50 for concessions and accompanied children are free.