2020: the second week watching colour and beauty emerge on each and every day of this year’s surreal spring
Sunday 29 March – the strong NE wind brought a real drop in temperature
We were visited by a solitary Red Kite – no longer an unusual sight, but too fleeting for me to snap. This individual was cruising around Basingstoke on the same day (but I doubt it’s the same one) and was caught on camera by Ralph.
Meanwhile I was busy planting sweet-peas, beneath the front garden obelisk
And wondering just how big this Euphorbia is going to get! Note: don’t cut this back in sunshine! Its sap causes the skin to become photosensitive and burns
Monday 30 March – cold, dry, even sunny later on – until David went cycling!
More potting and re-potting…. These Sedum are destined for Ralph’s garden.
Not sometime soon, unfortunately. (Having enough difficulty getting Sam’s new bike in place for his Easter week third birthday. Looks like Hermes (sic) can help)
The Wisteria’s on its way – and I spotted a single refugee Pansy from last spring
Tuesday 31 March – more very cold wind interrupted by sunny spells
More signs of new growth: clematis, clambering on a robust rose; clumps of violets, new rose shoots, and inklings of what will be a very large Hosta (Big Daddy)
New growth on a rather special box, grown from a cutting; and something less welcome in the gravel: Lords and Ladies – that’ll have to go!
Wednesday 1 April – a cold April Fool’s Day – and not many jokes around…
Exactly a week on from the last close up of buds on these two beauties – the Morello Cherry and the Ceanothus. And yes – now there’s a hint of blue peeping through
One rose is covered in deep red shoots, and a fleeting glimpse of evening sun
Thursday 2 April – a cold grey day that slowly improved….
Perennials full of promise – just wait a few weeks! Clockwise from top left: Californian Poppies; an army of Allium; Lychnis Coronaria; Crocosmia Lucifer.
Friday 3 April : a brilliant sunny spring day with a brisk cool wind
Sometimes patient river-watching is generously rewarded: look carefully for the busy-foraging water vole (aka Ratty of Wind in the Willows). All the photos were taken from the garden, less than 5 metres away and over a 30 minute period.
Saturday 4 April – will the very sunny weekend undermine all the good work?
This rose – whose name we have forgotten – will grow 12 feet at least this year, and shower us with the subtlest of creamy yellow blooms. Looks terribly well- behaved! And the Wisteria (colour slowly arriving) the Morello Cherry (the flowers’ whiteness just visible) and the Ceanothus … Well! come on the Blues! (as David might say – if Chelsea were playing)
So ends the second week of Spring 2020. Only 11 more until Midsummer’s Day!
countrymouse 