DAFFODILS AND DUCKS' DINNER

 The catkins on the hazel, caught by the sun are like golden rain.
I found an old nest from last year in a small tree, it might be a chaffinch I think.

And up in the wood the mountain of old ash sticks fallen from the trees may hide - what? - I would hope for a hedgehog.

 The garden is still fairly bare but stirring - the daffodils are everywhere and must have sown themselves let alone multiply where they have been planted. Here a few different kinds.

Above left is the assortment under the magnolia stellata, on the right the flowers planted originally under the willow tunnel, the trees now removed but the bulbs remain.

Then there are the pots overflowing outside the kitchen door. 

Just had a phone call from  my daughter - she has vine weevil grubs with her strawberries. She is an eco gardener so chemicals are not on. I suggested things like nematodes or even just getting rid of the lot, or washing the roots and trying again in a different bed etc.
Our strawberry plants are beginning to leaf.

Our frogspawn has gone (the frogs were eaten by the heron) so I logged on to the net and lo! Mallard love it so there's our answer - frogs or birds it seems. No spawn - all ducks' dinner.

Mr and Mrs Pheasant are together wandering the garden, she bored and waiting, he strutting his stuff.

On the left are the first flowers on the forget me nots, on the right the teasel - too soon? Note the ladybird. There have been a few in the garden as the weather warms. Wood anemones are out in the wood, well they would be in the wood wouldn't they.

Sometime early last year I did what I often do - drop a pen somewhere in the garden. I have just found one in the long grass behind the oil tank. It has been there for at least a year if not many. It is a uni ball vision elite. And it still writes!

Oh! And I have had a Facebook comment removed! In referring to Donald Trump I mentioned the first verse of Mandy Miller's song Nellie the Elephant - well there you go as they say.

MULTIPLICATION

That's the name of the game. (I find it hard nowadays to remember that the BBC banned Bobby Darin's record.)

Whilst we wait for Storm Katie (Monday) it is Saturday and rain. So out with the old house plants - one Canna lily becomes four, one streptocarpus becomes three and the poinsettia is cut back so it will resprout (and it is repotted).

One of the old amaryllis is in bud, the other following. I had forgotten how fast they grow. Half of the lawns have had a light mow and look a lot better.

Two very different gardening images, the first from my daughter and son-in-law's place on top of Orlop Hill looking south, the second in the gardens at Worcester College, Oxford.

 Up in the wood the primroses are in full flower and I do not remember so many wild daffodils.
Lesser celandines - R regards these as a weed but I rather like them as long as they do not get out of hand.
The flowering currant is heavy with flowers by the path as well as behind the house.
The snakes head fritillaries on the banking are in bus but as they arte favoured by rabbits and squirrels I wonder if they will survive to flower.

It is Monday, Easter Monday and I am struggling with a bad back so I cannot wheel muck around etc - whoopee! It is hard enough bending down to pick daffodils for the house. And I have this sense that the garden is ready to explode with new growth, buds fattening, weeds spreading, grass growing.

So April is almost upon us - what else is in the garden - fruit? veg? Ah! flowers and a duck let lone a fine fat female pheasant patrolling by the pond.

So two types of euphorbia, Madame Lefevre tulips in all their brilliant red glory, flowering currant and anemones, let alone the rhubarb - at last - are thriving. Everything is multiplying - the daffodils, the anemones and by the look of her the hen pheasant (Not to mention the rabbits in the field.)

Then up on my Facebook pops the information that Easter is named after Ishtar, goddess of fertility and sex - hence eggs and especially bunnies! Thanks Becky.

THE FLOWERS CREEP ON APACE

The white birches would be washed in some gardens but I feel that is a bit too much! The old bark is peeling to reveal new white stuff. The originals are beautiful and we wait for the 15 new ones to turn white and light up the far corner of the garden.

All sorts of leaves are pushing through the leaf litter - wild garlic (ramsons) to the left and bluebells to the right.

By the stream the golden saxifrage is coming into flower creating carpets of yellowish green.
It is a wild flower and very welcome, non invasive and easy to weed if I have to do that.

The Clematis armandii is flowering well as are the crocuses. R likes these darker ones but is not so keen on the pale lavender coloured petals.

Also shrubs are putting out flowers - the quince on the left and flowering currant on the right.

Have prepared area of bed with old horse manure and planted six hollyhocks - three 'Halo white' and three rosea 'Nigra'. As they will be tall I have put in canes for support later on.

Talking of daffodils here are some of our primroses.

Daffs are coming out all over the place. I like particularly these wild ones. No matter how many crosses and hybrids and whatever the truly wild British daffodil is the best of the lot.

On the left tete-a-tetes and others outside the door, on the right forgotten bulbs overtaken by other plants - in this case a cistus planted much later and when the leaves of the daffs have died away.

I have just been out in the garden - mid afternoon - and a tawny owl is hooting from the trees next door.

Admission time - have been away for 5 days visiting family - wonderful time - and have returned to a garden full of daffodils and narcissi so I picked an armful for the house.

It is time to start sowing seeds, well a bit late by the moon's cycle, and some of the house plants need potting on. The amaryllis, in their fourth year, I think, are at it again and will be fed.

Anyone like rabbit pie?

SPRING SPRUNG INTO ACTION

From our bedroom window, this morning, the light and reflected sky in the pond was like a cross between burnished metal and an oil slick, shimmering colours.
So, later, out by the pond extending the drain near the shed, collecting mole hills and putting the soil on the garden, picking up the interminable sticks and pruning the autumn fruiting raspberries that R does not like as they are golden and so have been banished to the far corner amongst the wild garlic.

The gang of new lambs is here, scrabbling under the field gate onto the track then not being able to work out how to get back into the field. At least they have not learned how to cross our cattle grid. 

R has begun to divide the snowdrops and replant in the green to spread them. I have been clearing more mole hills, trying again and failing to light the bonfire for more than a few minutes and begun to clear the overgrown rhododendrons and brambles from the top of the garden. I pruned the lace cap  hydrangea and found one low branch had rooted itself so a free shrub. As I cut back the growth it revealed daffodils underneath that had been hidden for years. 
I have taken new ivy off three of the big trees - there is some on three others to give cover and nesting places for the birds.

Sunday morning and the rain of yesterday has gone, the birds are singing and there is a mildness in the air - spring.
Mucking about again - don't tell R. Grandchildren pushed in the willow sticks for this thing so feel obliged to give it a go.

All sorts of shrubs and clematis are stirring.
I have assassinated the lemon scented geranium that comes into the kitchen through the winter - it gets too big. It has been in the family for years. My mother had it, I had it and lost it but had given my daughter a cutting so she gave it back to us. Each time we brush past it the leaves give us a strong waft of lemon.

Up at the top of the top banking the rhododendrons and ivy have encroached. So I began to hack back and increased the garden by a ten foot swathe!

The bonfire is now ten feet high and twelve feet across but as to whether it will light - read on. Add to that the discovery of a huge rabbit hole under a fallen elder, fallen from the weight of ivy growing on it, and daffodils hidden from view - well?
Meanwhile R was steadily lifting, dividing and replanting snowdrops all over the place.

Monday and I have cleared the whole banking, raked it off and had a bonfire what caught fire this time - and it is still burning and will be tomorrow. Lots of good ash to put on the blackcurrants (potash).

Tuesday is a day of rest, lunch out with two dogs and my sister-in-law (and R) and a rest.
Well I did stir up the fire again and burn a bit more leaf litter, some more sticks.
Hollyhocks have come from Sarah Raven and will need planting, a packet of Ammi seed as well - R says good for flower arranging but does create a mist of small white flowers in the garden.

I think that spring is not the only thing that has sprung - my back for one.
And over the pond the march hare is strutting his stuff - sigh!