Fresh Flowers

A few sunny days and the weeds have appeared already. So a few hours were spent on Monday weeding the border under the lounge window and admiring our spring bulbs close up

By far the most popular with the early busy bees is the purple-striped crocus with its bright orange anthers. Other recent discoveries have included the sun-loving anenomes, sharing the sink planters with the crocus, and some chinodoxia that has appeared in the vegetable patch. We’ve also spotted a few muscari on the banks of the copse.

Spring Blooms

 

March, and our profusion of snowdrops are beginning to fade from luminous white to delicate papery grey. There are still drifts of alpine white among the trees but these are beginning to be overtaken by the pointed acid yellow buds of daffodils preparing to flower. On the grass, in places, there are purple and white crocus forcing their heads above the green blades and, best of all, one or two highlights of buttercup yellow crocuses, including one slap bang in the middle of our winter puddle pond. That particular golden bloom comes from the bulbs we planted this autumn, so is especially gratifying. Most of our spring blooms are inherited and we’ve been marveling at each new discovery, as well as taking the opportunity to move clumps around and add some extras in pots.

In late Autumn, I moved two old Belfast sinks from the back of the house to the front, to benefit from the sunshine. I planted this with perennials and bulbs in shades of blue and green. Pleasingly, all the plants seem to be coping well with the winter and a cheery purple anemone is the first bulb to flower. The luscious green curls of tulip leaves are also growing up through the mulch of gathered seashells used to dress the top of the soil.

Thanks to all this floral abundance, I’ve been able to indulge in cutting blooms for the house, gathering two bunches of daffodils today which are now in jugs in the lounge and the kitchen. The coming spring has also encouraged us to crack on with work in the field – before new growth overtakes us. Our new WWOOFer. Audrey, and Matthew have been busy raking off bracken patches in the field and we’ll plant wildflower seeds in the bare soil to give them a bit of competition. The bracken strafing is a project inspired by the Woodland Trust site visit on Friday. We’re waiting for the full report but it looks like the best option for creating a woodland in the field will be to plant trees in stages, starting with the areas close to the current copse and those that benefitted most from the sheep grazing. In these areas we could plants around 500 trees (willow, alder, hawthorn, scots pine) this year. For the remainder, we need to get hold of livestock to turn the soil and beat down the bracken which looks like being our biggest enemy.