WInter gardening advice: Grow a flower shop in your own garden Looking out of my window through the sleet on to a cold, grey garden, I'm pleasantly distracted by a small posy of snowdrops with a greenish hellebore and a pom pom of sweet-smelling Viburnum x bodnantense twined with veined ivy at my elbow on my desk. On the kitchen table stands an old basinful of green amaryllis growing through moss collected from the lawn, and outside a galvanised pail of forced hyacinth 'L'Innocence" is dying down after a fragrant start to the new year. To keep myself rooted in the horticultural moment, I always have something from the garden close at hand, especially at this time of the year when the twice daily sortie is just a shivering dash. Then today, a stunning new book full of inspiration, colour and promise dropped through my letter box, filling me with admiration and the need to expand my horizons. Flowers Every Day from florist Paula Pryke is a month-by-month cornucopia of ideas. Paula takes us for a walk around her own Suffolk garden, pointing out what to pick, suggesting what to plant for next year, and holding our hand at the flower shop to show us best buys. "Keep it seasonal, fresh, scented and very simple," says Paula. Starting in spring, she shows us how to arrange bunches of bulbs, blossoms and buds, pussy willow Salix caprea and hellebores; summer brings bouquets of pastel peonies and roses and red-hot eremurus, kniphofia and crocosmia; through autumn's bounty of hips and haws, grasses and tenacious annuals like cosmos, achillea and nicotiana; on to winter displays of seed heads, evergreens and twigs. To increase our gardens" floriferous potential during the coming year, Paula encourages us to plant a cutting plot for annuals, a stunning blue and pink summer border enlivened with lime and burgundy designed by Michael Loftus; a herb garden from Jekka McVicar and a winter hedge of viburnums, cornus, privet and Cotoneaster franchetii, so our floral efforts will be all the more splendid. Stunning images of Paula's floristry encourage us from every page, making use of garden produce: blooms, berries, fruits, herbs, seed heads, twigs and foliage. Destined for Constance Spry's Flower Arranging School myself, I escaped and went instead to art school, so my reaction to home-grown tulips is to plonk them in a pretty vase and let the artistry of the flowers take over. Paula suggests we take a shelf full of simple, small glass vases and artfully place a couple of blooms in each: how to turn a bunch of flowers into a work of art. Useful tips on cutting, conditioning and supporting your flowers are the background to a journey from everyday arrangements to those special occasions that punctuate our year, from Valentine's Day to Easter, weddings to Hallowe'en and Christmas. I particularly loved Paula's moss-covered Easter table with wildflowers in egg-shaped containers nestling around a huge bunch of birch and hazel twigs hung with decorated eggs; her Mother's Day arrangement of weeping willow stems supporting blue hyacinth, Brachyglottis 'Sunshine," muscari, veronica and narcissus; and her Christmas arrangement of evergreens and berries in little green bottles spaced in a wreathlike circle. Gardening tip: flower containers Collect containers from car boot sales, junk shops and grocery packaging. Looking through my scullery shelves, I can see: A wide array of metal-topped kilner jars and jam jars for wild flower bunches. Old woven plastic baskets hiding Tupperware boxes to hold oasis and water. Tiny vintage terracotta pots for posies of muscari. Old-fashioned oil cans for sunflowers and dahlias. A dried hollowed-out pumpkin - for pot marigolds and cavolo nero leaves. Antique children's galvanised buckets - lovely with lavender in the loo. Large, ugly coloured glass vases for gladioli and lilies - two a penny from boot sales. Even small coloured drinks bottles look good in multiples full of spring flowers. Find an eco-friendly florist For many local eco florists the season starts after Valentine's Day, but maybe the promise of a monthly bunch or a voucher would make an acceptable love token. Blooming Green in Kent creates gorgeous home-grown hand-tied bouquets in compostable packaging. Buy a subscription to receive fresh flowers every month (01622 745917; bloominggreenflowers.co.uk). Daisy Roots sells locally grown flowers and will send a romantic jam-jar posy of Cornish tulips, iris and anemones for Valentine's Day. Cornwall only (01872 270510; cornwall ecoflorist.co.uk) Helen Carson of Bouquets and Butterflies in Suffolk grows her own flowers for bouquets from April onwards (bouquetsandbutterflies.co.uk). Sweetpeasand bumblebees.co.uk sells home-grown bunches in the Essex area from March onwards Arenaflowers.co.uk sells ethical organic bunches online.  Flowers Every Day by Paula Pryke is published by Jacqui Small (£15). For online bouquets and flower-arranging courses, see paulapryke.com