First daffodil to flower. © Sue Todd 2015
I don’t know about you but I don’t do Winter. The idea is just great, warm house, roaring fires, lovely food. But old English Country Houses are NOT warm, they tend to be draughty, and so keeping them warm is a full-time job, so while the idea of the English Country House in Winter with roaring fires is just fantastic reality falls a little bit short especially if you are no longer 20 and have Raynaud’s Syndrome. So how cheery is it to see flowers and leaves bursting out all over? It’s fantastic!
For all that I’d not swap English country living for the world. But how folks live near the North Pole with little to no daylight hours all winter I’ll never comprehend. I ‘need’, ‘crave’ sunlight and lots of it. Having said that I can’t do extremes of heat or cold either – there’s no keeping some folk happy I know! I am ‘that’ person!
As its Easter and the Good Friday here has been so cold, wet and grim I thought it was a good time to look at what is going on in the garden and take some comfort from the fact that things are changing in the garden.
Spring’s arrival shown by flowers in the garden at last.
Daffodils to brighten up the garden. © Sue Todd 2015.
Hellebores by the back door © Sue Todd 2015.
A clump of primroses hiding at the edge of the wood. © Sue Todd 2015
So while Autumn and its vibrant colours was my favourite season for many years, it’s now Spring when it’s really ‘sprung’ closely followed by summer which I long for all year round. My ideal world would now encompass an England where there was sunshine from now until the end of October, the rain fell overnight, and the wind would stop until November. I suppose that’s a tall order but, you must have dreams you know!
It’s our first Spring here so it’s lovely to discover all the flowers coming through and the Hellebore’s above are just outside the back door so we see them each time we come and go from the house.
With the clocks going back, at last the nights are truly getting lighter, the days are longer, temperatures are slowly getting warmer and green is beginning to burst out everywhere. I’m writing this as the log fire crackles and we’ve got the heating on full blast, but I do so knowing that today I was out in the garden viewing the changes and loving every minute of it.
There’s so, so much to do in our garden now, it is almost overwhelming but we’re both still here and almost in full despite our various accidents/illnesses over the past 12 months. So instead of feeling there’s little point in starting what we can’t complete, we’re full of enthusiasm and delight – we’re just a bit slower than we’d like.
I’m out almost daily (depending on the level of cold and rain obviously!!) to inspect and look about the garden.
The Vegetable Garden
Luckily we managed to get the vegetable beds cleared in March and the onions and garlic are coming on well.
Onions and Garlic coming away quickly now. © Sue Todd 2015
We’ve bought some new fruit bushes, two blackcurrant, one redcurrant and a red gooseberry, all we have to do now is keep the deer off them! We’ll have to protect the cherry trees this year too.
Blackcurrant, redcurrant and gooseberry bushes for the garden. © Sue Todd 2015.
And tomorrow we’re looking forward to our first rhubarb of the year. I was delighted to find more coming through too.
First Rhubarb of the year. © Sue Todd 2015
Time to prune the roses. © Sue Todd 2015
Thankfully I finally managed to prune the rose bushes as they are throwing leaves out now at some pace and I think if I’d left it any longer it would have been a major fight (which I’d have lost) to trim them back. However as shown below, keeping a hold on them is will be a fight as the deer have already started grazing the garden!
Deer eating our garden! © Sue Todd 2015.
We’ve planted the first seeds, we have rather a lot of tomato plants on the windowsill now, along with some courgettes and lettuce, the cucumber have begun to come through today.the potatoes are chitting and waiting to go in shortly. So while there’s lots still to do, progress is underway. How are things going in your garden?
For now,
Sue.
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