There are some colours that burst on us once a year, without precedent: unique, exciting and transient. The new leaves of lime trees have the stage this week; a colour that by coincidence we tend to call lime-green – referring, though, to the citrus fruit rather than one of our champion park trees. Each April I amble round Kensington Gardens, pausing at tree after tree to enjoy the glowing tenderness of the unfolding buds, the little shining package of the leaf pushing out, limp for a day before breathing gives it strength to open to a pale green oval.
Limes were the chosen show-trees of the Georgians. They imported them in thousands from Dutch nurseries to plant their avenues. Kensington Palace has a great crinoline of them centred on the Round Pond, planted perhaps by Queen Charlotte, replanted in the past twenty years or so and now brilliantly verdant, the epitome of a stately spring.
