January is an in-between month, the crossing point between winter and spring in the garden.  Admittedly the first snowdrops are just poking their heads above the soil but even the most optimistic gardener is stuck with finding something to praise in the duns and browns of quiet earth and decaying vegetation. Our saviour at Paxton Gardens is the flamboyantly cheerful yellow of Mahonia japonica. This exuberant stately shrub can be kept in check with regular pruning as a compact bush or allowed its head when, as we have it, the plant shoots up into a tall spiky gangster of a plant, prickly, bright and confident. If, as in the Well Garden at Paxton, it grows to a couple of metres tall, the lower branches will  become bare trunks and the plant will provide a brilliant splash of vibrant yellow high at the back of the border.  Winter brides who are clever enough to include the long racemes of mahonia in their flowers gain, not only vital colour, but architecture too with one of the best plants for a winter wedding bouquet.