Keeping warm is a pretty obvious reason to wear gardening gloves at this time of year — but my own reasons have migrated from simple hand vanity and protection to the rather less glamorous need to look after small children at a moment’s notice, so they must be easy to remove quickly.
Gold Leaf’s Winter Touch leather gloves (£25; rhsshop.co.uk) are really good for warmth. For protection, Sophie Conran’s gauntlets are favourites (£15; burgonandball.com) — they extend right up to the elbows, so I can quite happily grab a thorny stem and strip it.
Next are fair-weather gloves, which will help you to do all the weeding, lifting, pruning and digging while offering a layer of protection. I love the neoprene biker-like Ultimax gloves by Town & Country (£12; amazon.co.uk), which are padded in all the right places, but flexible, too. They are my go-to all-round gloves.
Lastly, the new generation of superlight, superthin gloves, such as those from Joe’s Garden, are a brilliant option for many gardening jobs (£6; joes-garden.com). They are really just a tougher, knitted step up from Marigolds.
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We dig this
The annual orchid festival at Kew Gardens, in southwest London, opens on February 4. Mug up on one of the largest flowering families with Jim Endersby’s Orchid: A Cultural History, which covers topics such as naming, the 19th-century mania for collecting them, their place in literature and art, and their extraordinary diversity. It’s lively, gripping stuff. £22; shop.kew.org
Be inspired
• Learn about winter pruning at Scotney Castle, Kent, on Wednesday at 2pm. Admission costs £13, NT members free (nationaltrust.org.uk).
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• See works by the 19th-century botanical artist Caroline Maria Applebee at the RHS Lindley Library, London SW1, until March 10, 10am-5pm. Entry is free (rhs.org.uk).