APRIL!!!

Well, I think TS Eliot was wrong - April is not the cruellest month - that is a contest between December and January - the first for all the hype over Christmas and the second because winter feels like it is never ending.

The Prunus shirotae is out, the great white cherry soon to follow. The shape the shirotae has taken leaning over the curved path to the veg beds is a delight and something I have taken a photo of many times. So loveliest of trees the cherry now - Housman had it right.

And the Victoria plum is flowering so we are hoping to be frost free, do not want the flowers blighted, want the fruit.

The camellia by the shed, sheltered from the damaging effects of early morning sun, is flowering better than it has ever done. It is such a shame that they are not scented. That would turn a stunning bush into one even more exceptional.

To daffs - still here though some dead heading has begun - so the energy generated by the leaves goes into next year's bulb not the seed head. Bought plants on the left, best of all wild daffs on the right.

Where the stream leaves to top garden and comes down to the lawns there are plantings of daffs, primroses and wild flowers such as the golden saxifrage. It looks a lot better now the winter detritus has been cleared away. I like the fact that the stream is not in a straight line, not too formal. I am not sure that R agrees with me re my desire for vaguely controlled chaos.

The slopes of the upper garden are now carpeted in primroses, not the artificial colours of primulas but the pale yellow of the native species.

We went to Ford Park where the garden has become more of a nursery and I bought some white camassias. R got a white pulmonaria shown here and this has been put in under the white lilac.

On exploring diet and so on I have reached the conclusion that onions are fatal (well upsetting) for me so turning to advice from the Fodmap diet we have changed to using green chives. I have let the plants by the blackcurrants seed into the path so we have an ample supply to keep us happy.

There are so many flowers coming, so much colour - whether the delicate heads of Fritillaria meleagris, the snake's-head 

or the blast of colour from our first main tulips.

A friend who lives in Pembrokeshire has said they are eating their first asparagus! We are several weeks away from that. Asparagus at the end of March - almost makes one want to move south.

So went and weeded the asparagus bed and went on weeding tearing out docks and creeping buttercup, couch grass and goose grass (cleavers).
AND I have done a first mowing on half of the lawns.

Time for tea and a dry Ryvita 😢