Feel like the unrelenting grimness of winter is never going to end?Then this could be the picture to sow a little cheer in your heart and make your thoughts turn to a (hopefully) more colorful season to come.
Surrounded by a sea of brightly hued pansies, a nursery worker makes final checks before the plants are delivered to garden centre’s and put on sale to brighten up our gardens and lives.
Four million of the pretty flowers - worth around £200,000 - are grown in massive glasshouses at the Roundhouse Nurseries in Pagham, West Sussex.
Hundreds of thousands of violas and primroses are also grown there, making for a total of 120,000 sq meters of glasshouse - or an area the size of 14 football pitches.
A botanical illustrator depicts a South American plant can be grown in the winter garden glasshouse successfully. "Flowers always seem to make people smile, even when the weather is lousy and everyone is rushing to get out of the rain or cold."
