snowdrops

It is that time of year, first sign of Spring, the snow melts away and snowdrops appear.

Digging in the garden. A short row every few days.

Today, harder work, tiring, trying to dig up nettles startling to grow.

Clay soil. Last year when I dug, hard clods of soil. I made the mistake a few weeks later, breaking the clods and raking the soil, which was then battered by the rain. What I should have done, and regretted I did not, let the weather erode down the clods.

This year I will leave, but what I have noticed, no longer the hard clods. The soil structure has improved. Maybe because I dug out one of the compost heaps, to rebuild, spreading the compost on the garden.

Leaving the soil, frost will also break down the clods.

• PHOTOS snowdrops

Spring day in the garden

bluebells

bluebells

From dawn, the sun shining, clear blue sky. The sun warm, but air temperatire cool.

At this time of year, the sun as intense as mid-August. We tend to forget as the air temparture is cool.

Grass mowed. A little digging.

Bluebells are not always blue.

Feline friend paid a visit.

garden path

garden visitor

garden digging

garden visitor

Spring day in the garden

grass mowed

wood anemones

wood anemones

What a difference does a week make. What a difference does a couple of days make.

Last week cold, the following days each day getting colder, mid-week frost in the morning and very cold nights.

Yesterday, no longer cold.

Today, last weekend in March, a lovely warm sunny spring day in the garden.

Grass mowed, tomorrow will sow more broad beans variety Bunyards Exhibition.

Pleasant spring afternoon in Farnham

Farnham Parish Church

Farnham Parish Church

Manuscript Found in Accra new books in Waterstone’s

falafel and Greek salad

Two days ago it was snowing, today it was pleasantly warm. At least it was in the spring sunshine, in the shade it was still very cold.

March 2013: The coldest March since 1962. March was colder than December, January or February. Easter Sunday was the coldest on record.

As it was a lovely day, I only wish I had got out sooner and made the most of the day. I did not get to Farnham until until late afternoon.

I did not expect to find the Parish Church open, but luckily I did, and met the new vicar (he said he had been in post for about four weeks). I mentioned about the Easter paintings. He said there was now some information on them. I also found what I thought was the Last Supper. I learnt that none is the Last Supper. I also learnt there are 14, though I have only found 12.

WHSmith had one copy of Manuscript Found in Accra. I asked the manager was this all they had? She checked, and said they had eight. This I queried, as another store the day before said they had only one, and one was all I could find. She told me they had had a delivery that day. An international best seller, and they cannot be bothered to put out on the shelves. No wonder WHSmith is a failing High Street retailer when they have staff like this.

Watersone’s had three copies of Manuscript Found in Accra and they were on prominent display with new books as walk in the door.

Very late lunch at The Barn, falafel and Greek salad.

On leaving The Barn, gone seven o’clock, it seemed strange still lightm the clocks having changed to summer time last weekend.

Waiting for bus, luckily on time, already getting very cold.

When I alight from second bus, now gone eight and getting dark, very very cold.

The sun is shining

the sun is shining

The sun is shining, the snow is melting, the daffodils are out, it is marginally above zero.

The first week of spring.

The cold winter weather is projected to continue for the next 2-3 weeks.

First days of spring and it is snowing

snow in spring

Two days ago it was the first day of spring, 21 March 2013.

Yesterday heavy freezing rain.

This morning I awoke to find it was snowing.

Projected, the coldest March in 50 years.

Top Story in The Daily Garden (Saturday 23 March 2012).

Weird weather

bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

cowslip (Primula veris)

Monday a week ago, the last day of April, it was a lovely spring day. I made the most of it it and worked in my garden.

It was very much the exception not the norm for this year.

Officially we are in drought!

• Wettest drought

April 2012, the wettest April on record.

April 2012, if not the coldest, one of the coldest.

I worked much longer in the garden than I had intended. I had not been in the garden for days, I did not know when the next good day would be.

That night very heavy rain, thunder and lightning. It continued all morning. Luckily it eased off by late morning and I was able to head for Guildford for lunch and the farmers market (first Tuesday of the month).

The rest of the week, cold wet and raining. The weekend was very cold. Probably around 5 to 7 C maximum. Sunday was very cold. I popped out Sunday evening and it must have been close to freezing.

Monday I had hoped it would be dry. It was cold, then it started raining.

But it is May! It is more like winter.

Today I hoped it would be dry. But it had rained all night, the grass was soaking wet. I hate mowing wet grass, but it was getting long, had not been cut for a week.

It was warm and very humid. Slowly the clouds broke up and it turned into a lovely sunny day.

As the previous Monday, I worked in the garden much longer than intended.

Grass was mowed. Hard work when it is wet and it chews up the grass.

Bed for sweetcorn cleared, sweetcorn sown. Red in the bed by the fence, yellow and black by the front wall.

Beans sown, strip side of lawn, by lattice fence.

Runner beans var Scarlet Emperor.

French beans var Paralimni.

Cowslips are in full bloom, as are the bluebells in woodland area at the bottom of the garden. The patch of bluebells near the house, which have been out for weeks, will soon be over.

Bluebell

bluebell

In Japan, spring is heralded by the cherry blossom trees coming into flower.

In England, it is the bluebell that heralds the arrival of spring.

Although found across northern Europe, it is in England that bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) comes into its own.

Ancient woodlands, with trees of oak, hazel and ash, once coppiced, though now mostly neglected, in the spring are a carpet of blue.

Bluebells are the second wave of woodland flowers. The first wave are much closer to the ground.

The trees then come into leaf, shading out the ground.

Nothing of interest will now be found in the woods, apart from butterflies flitting around sunny glades and woodland rides, until the autumn, when the woodland fungi can be found.

Last week, bluebells were just starting to come into flower in my garden.

– Spring Solstice 2012

April, I will expect the woodland area of my garden to be carpeted with bluebells.

Bluebells are usually blue, but occasionally they are white and purple.

Dreams in seasons

dreams in seasons - summer

Who speaks the sound of an echo? Who paints the image in a mirror? Where are the spectacles in a dream? Nowhere at all. — Lakshminkara

A strange exhibition. It traces the life of Polly from a little girl of 8 to her death at 80. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

Enter through a garden shed, pass through a garden, through a secret tunnel into a garden in Spring, through to the most dream-like sequence dreams of Summer, here we meet a fortune teller who we can meet later again in Autumn, then death in the cold of Winter.

Metro-Boulot-Dodo at The Collection in Lincoln.

Top story in The Dream Journal (Friday 13 January 2012).

Top stories The Dream Journal (Sunday 15 January 2012).

Spring Easter Monday April 2011

bluebells

cowslips

It has been unseasonably warm. We seem to have skipped Spring and gone straight to Summer.

Last Tuesday it was 26 degrees in London. Friday it hit 27 degrees, well ok, 26.9 if you wish to be accurate. Saturday it was 28 degrees at Wisley Gardens just outside Guildford, the hottest April Day since 1948!

We are a month ahead of where we would be. Parts of my garden are overgrown, but would not usually be like this until this time in May.

Peas, broad beans are all shooting up, roses are in bud.

Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) are a woodland plant. First come the primroses, then the bluebells.

In the Spring, bluebell woods are carpeted with bluebells. Bluebell is an indicator species of ancient woodlands. In the United Kingdom the common bluebell is a protected species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Landowners are prohibited from removing common bluebells on their land for sale and it is a criminal offence to remove the bulbs of wild common bluebells. This legislation was strengthened in 1998 under Schedule 8 of the Act making any trade in wild common bluebell bulbs or seeds an offence.

Gerard Manley Hopkins from his poem May Magnificat:

And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes

Up until the 1950s, pastures would have been carpeted with cowslips (Primula veris). Now with the extensive use of herbicides and modern farming methods, cowslips are quite rare. Cowslips will quite readily cross-breed with primroses (Primula vulgaris), a plant of woodlands and woody banks. Compared with primulas, a border plant in gardens, cowslips are very delicate and far more attractive.

Primula is a genus of 400–500 species of low-growing herbs in the family Primulaceae. The genus includes primrose, auricula, cowslip and oxlip. Many species are grown for their ornamental flowers. They are native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, south into tropical mountains in Ethiopia, Indonesia and New Guinea, and in temperate southern South America.