THE DAYS CREEP ON

 ...Apace. Spring is a-coming in with heavy tread, lots of rain and grey skies. Today Is Tuesday and rain all day.

When the sun comes out there are surprises like a treecreeper in the hawthorn and the cock pheasant now with a harem of four hens.

After I killed off, well the frost did, our geranium my daughter gave us a cutting from her cutting off our old plant so it goes on.

Sun does make then place more cheerful -

Daffs on the banking not so good this year but doing well elsewhere.

And primroses - 

Some more emerging flowers - 

Tom's flowering currants are doing well as is the rhubarb - crumble last night.

There is a lot of water in the stream and I know the grass needs mowing but its is so wet! R rakes the bankings and I have done a bit of hoeing, deadheading, pruning roses etc.

Still in search of a reliable gardener but not having much luck, still we carry on - the whole garden could become a wildlife haven and we would just have to power wash the paving so we can sit there and despair.

The veg beds are waiting though the chives have come through. 

We love the flowers on the camellias and they are splendid - come on someone we need a scented plant!

The magnolia stellata is just coming out as are the tadpoles - if the heron has not eaten everything - here every day.

So to leave you with one gorgeous camellia -

Time for a shot of the elixir of life which I do not have so it will have to be a cup of tea.

NO FORECAST?

What will the weather be tomorrow? 

No idea.

Sun is out, it is raining and then - 

Then it is frosty, then it pours. The heron does not seem to mind as long as there are frogs for dinner.

Preening

and away.

There has been very little snow this winter but it does make the garden take on a different look.

Any way one day of sun, albeit cold, and most of it was gone.

And spring continues to crawl forth with the first wild daffodils.

I picked some quince and put in a slender vase which gave it a rather Japanese look.

I am chasing gardeners again, perhaps now to mow? Anyway too wet, new springs all over the place and grass sodden.

Back to the heron - one newt less I am afraid.

Then I find one of the gateposts is going rotten and the farmer has released the gang into the back field (lambs). They will be out under the field gate soon seeking greener grass.

It is Tuesday and the sun is out, wait, wait, - 

Yes it is snowing again, just a shower, not really settling.

Out in the garden the cock pheasant patrols the lawn. When the sun is out it catches the quince blossom.

So, what is flowering in the house? Tulips and cyclamen.

Even if they are from M & S.

IS SPRING NEARLY HERE

 Or not?

Mild - yes, damp - yes, but I am not casting any clouts yet.

Yeh! Yeh! we have snowdrops.

But that is all a bit boring now, in the local garden centre a small pot was £5.99! That must make the garden worth thousands.

But we do have the odd crocus and - this up by Tom's buddleia.

The are a bit tatty on some of the petals but food for something.

The rhubarb is struggling from the soil but there are hopes of a good crop. Must put a bit of extra compost on but they really could do with some good old muck.

We have a large flock of starlings whirling about but not chattering much yet. The rook are beginning to build and I have heard the woodpecker drumming. Yesterday I heard the first call of the song thrush and perhaps a chief chaff. 

One of the bird feeders has died - mauled by the squirrels - so had to get another.

And it gets busy under the feeders - pheasants, wood pigeons, finches and also wood mice.

I had scattered a few seeds on the ground thinking I would get something big - not these minute whizz kids - one speed flat-out or nothing!

Flowers - we have - 

Clematis armandii

First camellia

What was supposed to be a white hellebore!

That viburnum again

Golden saxifrage growing wild by the stream

Pulmonaria - lungwort because the white spots on the leaves resemble a lung infected with TB.

The little daffs we brought in a pot from our previous house 16 years ago (really that long!)

And then we have much activity in the pond where the frogs have got frisky fooling around and we have a big clump of frogspawn. No doubt the ducks will come and eat it.

Having moaned about wet conditions the garden is getting dry. The stream is becoming a trickle and the grass is growing, needs a-mowing?

THE CATKINS ARE COMING

Yo-ho, yo-ho. 

I have been rumbled, so R says. I love gardens and plants and design but not gardening! She said this as she tidied the biggest flower bed though I had been weeding, well hoeing, the asparagus bed. 

All is not helped by an attack of vertigo, bad back and general desire to be asleep rather than  digging and shifting compost.

R is disappointed that the fallen tree up the garden has partial hidden the sweep of snowdrops into the wood.

And we have our first catkins on the hazel despite the attempts to eat the shrubs by the roe deer.

We are plagued by tiny gnats that have come from the compost of some of the house plants. Have put gravel on the top of the compost and sticky yellow cards above. Still plagued despite catching hundreds.

We bought a hellebore at a garden centre in Shropshire a while back - a lovely white one - here it is! A bit disappointing though lovely in its own right. Elsewhere we have kale and the rhubarb is starting to come into leaf.

There are other signs of spring - birds calling, buzzards circling, the heron searching for emergent frogs - but no lambs in the back field yet.

Elsewhere quince and viburnums flower - yes I know I included a pic of Viburnum bodnantense Dawn in the last blog but it looks so good. Actually only wrote the last sentence after I realised I had - not the same photo but very like it.

I am not allowed down the garden at the moment if R is out in case I topple over. Mind you a cup of tea and a nap is more the thing.

Must do my exercises for the vertigo but now have a bad back - excuses, excuses.

So I nipped out to get a rose or roses for St Valentine's Day from the garden centre - 'Sorry, we don't have any." So had to be a deep purple cyclamen. 

Jemima and friend are back on the pond. As the lower banking is not cut I wonder if she will nest in there again?

Went out today, R to tidy the back bed, me to tidy the compost heaps and try to light the bonfire - far too wet of course. And then it started raining.

Time for a cup of tea, the crossword and some rest.