potential:

It feels like each glimpse of spring is followed by a storm. Although the jobs are getting more urgent, the hail does not make them appealing. There is sleet forecast overnight and temperatures of one degree for the next week. 

I am trying not to mind. I pack seeds and print envelopes at the kitchen table with the woodburner lit. Endless tea to keep out the grey. Each of the packets is an envelope of potential. Hope. A promise from the future. 

Because I have done so few outside jobs* this week, this newsletter is a way of noticing and naming the signs of Spring. It is so easy to have one’s eyes fixed only on the ahead, to schedule things to do but not notice the things that happen. This week has been a very sad and difficult one professionally. This week I have needed the glimpses of hope, and the resilience of nature in the face of the grim grey sky. And I know next week, this newsletter, and my instagram feed, will be stuffed full of magnolias in full bloom.

Not all of them have been photographed. In fact, some have appeared in unexpected places. The first grape hyacinths pushing through the concrete around a lamp post outside the car park at work. (I come home and find they have appeared in the cobbles at the front of the cottage too, as well as violets in the grass.)

Signs of hope

A blackbird singing at dusk in the old apple tree at the end of the next garden. 

A harvest of PSB, and the very very first tip of asparagus.

Wild garlic.

The narcissi in clusters around the stone fruit trees in the orchard.

Later dog walks in the slow fading light, rather than the pitch black. 

Pops of furled white blossom on the espaliered pear by the back door.

Cleavers and nettles spreading under the hedges. Although not welcome because they are so invasive, they will add nitrogen-rich material to the compost heap which I have failed to stack this weekend.

As you can see, Hugo remains unclipped. He is essentially a mop without a stick and needs wringing out every time he sets foot outside.

All of the bulbs are now up through the soil, and many are showing their buds. Because of the voles, most are in pots around the cottage, in sinks and troughs and as many posts as I can find. I am delighted the crocuses survived, the first year they have remained uneaten. There are tulips everywhere. The muscari are now quite the colour I was expecting, but I am still pleased to see them nevertheless. (If you can recommend a good but slightly unusual colour, please get in touch.)

The buxus has gone a fuzzy lime green with fresh growth. The bare root Japanese anemones I put in the trough by the back door are putting out hairy purple leaves. The furry brown rabbit-ears clematis has survived the winter and is shooting up the side of the studio. The gravel apron around the studio is thick with self-sown poppies, each one starting to show buds. I think they might be corn poppies rather than the cuttable icelandic, but that’s life. (Papaver rhoeas, not nudicaule.)