More ambitious two- and three-day courses are planned for 13-15 July and 20-21 July. For the first time, Ms Raven is also selling seeds for those who want to plant flowers for cutting: sunflowers, cornflowers, marigolds, dill (for its foliage), snapdragons, poppies and many others All seeds cost pounds 1.50 a packet. I don’t want this time of year ever to finish, but in the very small part of my mind that is rational, I know it will. Making sure there is more still to come softens the blow.CUTTINGSSarah Raven, queen of the cutting garden, is offering more courses this year on growing and arranging cut flowers.

For the past couple of months, snowflakes have been flowering on our bank, tall graceful clumps of green with dangling white snowdrop heads on the ends of the stems. They are interplanted with more brunnera, the plain, green-leaved kind, so in essence, this is a spring planting.But with them is a `Bevis’ fern, one of the most beautiful of the polystichums, with long, arching fronds, and it is this, together with the greyish hosta `Krossa Regal’ that will give that part of the bank a new life later in the season. Their flowers are good, but the leaves of the three plants are similarly matt in texture The group needs to be kicked into orbit. I hope `Citronella’, with its elegant, recurved flowers, will be the answer.Ferns, like spurges, are reliable bankers, provided you can give them the cool conditions they like. But the euphorbia is a good all-round plant, evergreen (or rather, evergrey), intriguing and sculptural Even on its own, it would make the spot worth visiting. If I can remember to pop in a few summer-flowering Spanish daisies (Erigeron karvinskianus `Profusion’), it will be even better.Lilies follow on well from early bulbs, having the same strengths and weaknesses (phenomenal flowers, useless foliage) and I’ve just taken delivery of some `Citronella’ lilies to plant amongst blue and white hyacinths on the bank.The hyacinths are there to complement the variegated, blue-flowered brunnera, a clean, simple combination of spring-flowering plants.But later on, the brunnera grows coarse and unprepossessing. It is surrounded by the tall blue geranium `Mrs Kendall Clark’ and the similar (though shorter) `Johnson’s Blue’.

I’ll probably go for some sheets of the red Dianthus deltoides.The same problem will occur where the very early dwarf magenta tulip, T pulchella, is growing with patches of blue Anemone blanda. That show will finish soon, but they have as company the snaky, ground-hugging twirls of grey-leaved Euphorbia myrsinites. This is flowering at the moment, with vivid, lime-green heads (good with magenta), so the patch is technically grand slam rather than successional in its planting. But bulbs put themselves neatly away when they have finished their growth cycle.

Without some backdrop, such as the handsome dark evergreen Helleborus foetidus, there would soon be an empty gap where the narcissus and hyacinths are performing so magically at the moment.I think spring should be grand slam time, and bulbs achieve those kinds of effects better than any other kind of plant. But while you are enjoying these in-your-face displays, you need always to be thinking “What happens afterwards?”This spring, Tulipa batalinii `Bronze Charm’ interplanted with deep blue de Caen anemones has been better than ever before. But though I feel that nothing will give me more pleasure on that patch than these two do, it nevertheless has to have something happening on it for the rest of the year, when both anemone and tulip have dived underground.Pinks, I think, will be the answer. They like the same hot, well-drained conditions as the tulips and they will not get too rampant. If you add Geranium palmatum to the group, it immediately has better prospects for the future.The same thinking might apply to a group of the yellow narcissus `Quail’, interplanted with deep blue hyacinths They both look – and smell – magnificent. So in any group, there ought to be one plant (like the bergenia) which will continue to have point when its flowers have finished.The perennial wallflower `Bowles Mauve’ is a generous plant, flowering over a long period.

That is a useful trait, but as a plant it does not have character. At this time of the year, you can team it with sweet- smelling, pale cream narcissus. That will look fresh and spring-like, but will not be a sustaining diet. Are you going for the grand slam, with everything coming out together? Or are you planting for continuity, so that whenever you look at a particular spot, something is happening? With a little forethought, you can have the best of both worlds, for there are some plants, notably hellebores and euphorbias, that contribute to the garden all the year round. If you include one or two of these “bankers” in your plant groups, you will be more than half-way to success.The best bankers have good foliage, because in the end it is leaves, not flowers, that make your garden feel rich, abundant and well-furnished.