It’s been one smooth sweet flow from a winter more marked by darkness then cold into the most be-flowered spring I can remember. I can only speak for the mild south-east, but there was only a moderate snap of cold in early December, then the bonus of warmth last summer ripening wood and preparing flower buds for the show we are now enjoying. The cherry (double-flower gean) in the street is stretching its rather gawky branches clotted with snowballs almost to my study window (top floor front). The magnolia below is just finishing its performance (purple petals, white on the back; I wish it were all white). Most prized of all, the cercidiphyllum in the front, a great drooping salad of a tree, has stretched far over the pavement to reach the parked cars. We’ve cut a tunnel for the pavement, but people still have to bow their heads as they pass.
The garden behind has now turned green; not yet flowering. All it can propose at present is white viburnum, camellias (pink “Top Hat’ and white ‘Simplex’), the brave little effort of the pink ‘monthly’ rose and a purple wallflower (Erysimum to the educated). But the clematis have begun to clamber, white bergenia looks fresh from the laundry and shoots from the ground are awaiting identification. I’ve never seen a variegated lavender before, but this newcomer in its pot on the wall catches the light and our approving regard. Hydrangeas in their pots pose questions: of their multiple pairs of burgeoning shoots to I prune higher or lower, for smaller or bigger flowers. They and everything else are asking for npk.
