The period between Christmas and New Year can easily feel flat, but a walk in brilliant winter sunshine, with the low slanting light making everything glisten or glow in beauty, is exactly the opposite. Kew Gardens is famous for its marvellous Witch Hazels. Today, Hamamelis x intermedia was in full ‘bloom’, its extraordinary flower structures in deep yellows and oranges contrasting crisply with the cloudless sky. The photo is unretouched.

The Corsican Pine near the Queen Elizabeth gate is always beautiful. Today in the slanting light the soft colours and subtle shapes of its jigsaw-flaked bark were shown off to perfection.