The wind is whipping across my garden all the way from the arctic, sudden squalls of rain and hail are interspersed with intense glimpses of the sun. The light keeps changing by the second making it feel like I'm in Ullapool in the Highlands rather than a sleepy village in the Fens of England.
Not an ideal day for garden photography but spring is rushing by me and must be recorded.
Our record rainfall of the past month or so has given an intensity to the leaf canopy that is exceptional so I have made a collage of just some of the plants in my garden today.
Always a heart stopping moment for me is the sight of the first Lily of the Valley. It takes me back to being seventeen again and working as a florist (in the sixties) and the anticipation of opening the first box of the season of these heralds of spring. They would be sent up by rail from Covent Garden.Tucked in with them would be damp little posies of fragrant violets. So precious, they would bring a tear to the eye of the shop owner who would gruffly pretend to have something in his eye.
The woodland border is just about at it's best - the plant on the far right is a Uvularia that I grew from seed, not a fast grower it has taken years to reach this size. I'm honoured by it's presence it's a very fussy plant but obviously like it's present home. The fading Hellebores, the Brunnera and the Solomon's Seal are such an archetype of spring that they are almost a cliche but they please me intensely.
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