WHAT A DIFFERENCE

 A mow makes!

Spring equinox, temperature 16C, not a cloud, at last!

The Madame Lefebre tulips are out as is one of the camellias.

We have our first forgetmenots, wood anemones in the wood (of course), and both the white honesty and one of the cherries is showing petals. The magnolia stellata is well on the way and joins pulmonarias and hellebores. At the back of the house we have leaves coming on the cercidiphyllum and flowers on the flowering currant. And I have failed to light the bonfire yet again.

Primroses dress the lower woodland edge. Note the logs - need chopping.

R has been hard at it shifting branches to the bonfire and dividing snowdrops now they are in the green.

Other wild things in the garden include the rabbits that are digging everywhere and down by the stream the opposite leaved golden saxifrage is doing well.

And of course there are daffodils. R suggested we dug up all but the native wild daffodil so I said she can if she wants - go and look at how many there are - she changed her mind.

Mind you the wild daffodil - Narcissus pseudo narcissus is the best.

We are in a short dry spell so have been watering the pots. Winter is done for.

R suggests we buy in lots of seeds to grow our own food after Putin throws his nuclear weapons about. It seems no one can argue with him. Perhaps a good laugh in his face would help - or put all the dictators in a locked room and tell them they can only come out when they have decided to be nice? Might be some personality conflicts there?

It is evening, the shadows lengthen and better days approach.

WAKEY, WAKEY

 The woodpecker is hammering away in the trees, the cherry buds are swelling and one of our cock pheasants cannot help but admire himself in our living room window, strutting back and forth beside his reflection.

So let us get the daffs done with and for all the glory of these it is the small wild ones we live the most.

Elsewhere there are the beginnings of a banking full of wild primroses, the flowering currant is coming out as is the clematis armadii on the shed. I thought we had lost this to clematis wilt but it is recovering. Our hellebore is full of flower and the quince never seems to have stopped flowering.

Then there are the euphorbias and the white pulmonaria etc.

Elsewhere there are other stirrings - apart from the frogspawn the water lily is showing its first tentative leaves and the rhubarb is growing nicely. 

Beside the small bed where the white camassias and purple sensation allium grew last year seedlings have appeared in the path - but which are they from? And we have moles and moles and moles! They come in from the surrounding fields. I could now have two or three waistcoats and we have had the catcher in but . . . 

And then there is the wonderful work our gardener S is doing fashioning the new veg beds. When they are done I will have to grow something in them - like snails and slugs and caterpillars. At least with the wire netting not rabbits - may not be high enough to keep out the deer though.

MARCHing ON

 Well, no need to leap this year, the lads safe from proposals and the first daffodils coming out.

Tuesday was sunny, March 1st, the first day of meteorological spring. Back to winter now.

So - spring flowers - we have seen pussy willow, hazel catkins and winter cherry out but here in the garden it is the smaller stuff.

Tom's crocuses at the top from the wood, then the little daffs I brought in a pot from our previous house, anemone blanda  yellow and purple crocuses more daffs and the first primroses.

There is lots of new growth but also things sometimes come to an end.

Fortunately this bracket fungus was not here but down at Conishead Priory where they lost several magnificent trees in the storms.

Down at the pond the frogs keep spawning. I think the heron will be here soon.

The rhubarb is coming on erupting through the soil surface and looking good in the forcing pot. We must remember to freeze some this year, forgot last.

I see some Russian millionaire has offered $1 million dollars for Putin to be removed. What is it with these Russian leaders having their names ending with -in? Putout would be better.

Why anyone would want to be remembered in the same breath as Stalin or Hitler, let alone Genghis Khan etc etc beats me. He has done the unforgivable thing for a politician and cornered himself - no way out now with the world recalling him as a good guy. Ah! Vanity!

What a world, just me and a black dog. 😟

SPRING?

This is the path down to the pond and the Wendy House on the northern boundary of the garden. The snowdrops have been here since long before we built our house.

The pond is just out of sight on the top right. The ducks came and went - we wonder if they will return now we have frogspawn. Gill N. says she has newts but not seen any yet here.

Beyond the snowdrops small cyclamen are staring to push out of the leaf litter.

The birds are starting to sing, robins and chirping tree sparrows and the rooks are gathering in the tall trees. They have, as yet, not nested in our trees but next door. There its a flock of redwing in the back field. A pair of moorhen have been spotted by the pond by R.

Friday and Dudley is gone, now Eunice (I mean whoever calls a storm Eunice) and panic in the south with red warnings etc. When we had Arwen that felled 8 million trees and cut people off electricity there was not such an outcry - but then this storm is mostly in the south. Good drying weather for the washing here.

Just seen both bench seats blown over so . . .

It has not stopped the rabbits from coming to dine on the grass from down the field.

Still there will be another stick picking to be done when it has passed. The grass is so soggy my feet sink in two or three inches - stay off lad.

I would go out in then garden but . . .

I can see the quince from my window and that is near enough to outside at the moment.

I can also see the snowdrops and the wind and the chimes blown horizontally and the big ash above the house is swaying and we do not want another tree down.

I am just glad to be going into the kitchen where the Aga range pumps out warmth and put the kettle an and have a cup of tea and read a book - I have finished the crossword.

Saturday morning and a coffee in town. By lunchtime this - 

Then the sun came out and it all melted. The sparkle in the trees was stunning but walking under them was a constant drip on the head and down the neck.

By Sunday morning storm Franklin is on its way with strong winds and heavy rain so I am inside writing my blog having spent most of the morning asleep.

I know the shed needs doing, in fact the garden needs doing but the weather is so bad that not will have to wait - I mean the worst that could happen is we have a semi-wild garden and that is very in fashion.

So Franklin came and covered our windows with sea salt - we are several miles from the sea, and flooded the garden again. This puddle is the result of a new spring forming in there lawn and running down to the veg beds. What do you do in a storm if you are a pigeon - shut your eyes and hunker down until it is past.

The garden is once again strewn with twigs - sigh!

Can't wait for Gladys.