This is the first time I have really noticed the suddenness that can be the start of Spring because it does feel as if everything has sprung up five times quicker than I would have expected. It seems just a few days ago that the daffodils were diffidently poking through the cold clay of my garden and now most of them are fully and triumphantly in flower everywhere I look and none of them seem to be lingering very long at the bud stage. The warm sun today has encouraged even more out. Even the narcissi at the plot which looked so unpromising last year, with only sparse green leaves, are throwing up buds this year.

And then there are the tulips which are are almost hurtling into maturity with buds beginning to show inside the unfurling ribbons of leaves. They are popping up in odd rows all over the plot as well as in the garden. There must have been some system or pattern in my head when I planted them, but it is very hard to work out now what that might have been.The  Abu Hassan with their beautiful red and yellow are coming back for the third year and the others appearing will be a lovely surprise as yet again my predictable unreliability with labels leaves the emerging rows anonymous.

For the first year, something at the plot has eaten a few of the newly emerging tulip shoots. Not enough to be a disaster, but annoying if there ends up being a squirrel problem there as well as the garden where so many of my bulbs have been dug up, eaten or played with by the local thug squirrels.

Although there is lots of Spring growth evident in the garden: hellebores, forget-me-nots, clumps of gentle yellow primroses and bulbs, there isn’t much colour yet at the plot. Lots of promise though, with lupins miraculously surviving the Winter and early slugs and snails; self sown hesperis  looking healthy and poking through the earth to test the dahlias, their tubers feel consolingly solid despite all the rain.

 

A four hour stint of weeding and mulching the beds at the weekend has got some space ready to welcome the blue cornflowers growing on in their pots at home. Spring has sprung alright and started the manic cycle of seed sowing, potting on and planting out which will keep me running round in circles for the next few months.