Glimmers of spring

We’ve been yearning for so many weeks towards spring that I’m feeling quite put out that it still isn’t really here yet. Lots of mud, lots of weeds, lots of beds still needing to be cleared, and various factors (high winds, covid vaccinations, bad backs) delaying the team from being able to crack on with it all as quickly as we’d like. But where we’ve been, the garden looks loved and tended. We are determined (again) that This Year we will mulch everywhere the minute it has been weeded, and finally scramble on top of the buttercups and docks and willowherbs that love the good rich soil we provide for our cherished flowers. The very first of these are just beginning to appear: the sunny little smudges made by clumps of primroses against the soft damp soil, and marvellous papery cups of hellebores bell-like between the dry sticks of hydrangeas. The other day I weeded out a little speedwell germander with a tiny Prussian blue flower, and I kept it. English garden flowers at this time of year are still rare and precious.