The saying goes 'April showers bring May flowers'. In the UK, people go visiting bluebell woods, while cowslips and early purple orchids are also flowering. But in the southern hemisphere, the winter is coming. In South Africa, the veld becomes brown and grey but there are still many species of aloe flowering, providing nectar for birds over the winter.

Of course plants give us so much more than flowers. We eat plants, use them to make medicine and clothes, and build houses and furniture out of them. In fact, because green plants provide oxygen, there wouldn’t be much life on earth without them.

So this month we're celebrating flowers and plants.

We'd also love some Guide entries about plants. There are plenty there already, like Coastal Redwoods, Cabbages and Choosing the Right Garden Plants but we're sure you can find a gap.

Or, you could write us a description of your garden, a story about man-eating plants, or a poem about a gift of some seeds. There are plenty of opportunities to choose from.

We plant the seeds, now to watch them grow