Spring flowers

There is this delicious pause in the weather. Glorious spring sunshine, cold nights but blazing days.

And if you didn’t have the possibility of looking at the long range forecast you would be skipping down among the cherry trees, frolicking among the blossom….

So these pictures are so you can see what I fear might be a short-lived delight. We have a cold snap coming. Nights of minus 3Celsius. Blasting northerly winds with gusts of up to 85km per hour….

I can’t say I’m surprised. This often happens.

But you get that annoying dance between seeds sown early and sprouting roots out of their pots weeks before they really should go in the ground.

I had to put out a dozen of these broad beans because I was losing the battle with the containers.

Third raised bed from the left. In among the tulips. Hang on a mo, I’ll nip out and take a close up for you.

• 

• 

• 

Interloper. She wanted her breakfast. That, or she just loves photo bombing the plant shots.

I put these tulips in the raised beds as there was nothing of note really happening in the main potager. And I’m delighted. I keep trying to snap different angles.

And of course I’m cutting like mad.

Most of the bouquets are a mix of the narcissus Thalia, these tulips, quince blossom branches, and prunings from the hedge.

I’ll pick a lot more before the worst of the cold comes to slam on these delicate blooms.

It’s a shame. And also a shame that we are now in our third hard lockdown, and the chances of nipping up to the shops to buy more fleece to cover the delicate seedlings in the potting shed are diminished. The 10km radius we have imposed upon us can be as the crow flies – a l’oiseau – which gets my shops in range. Or by the strict rules of obedience.

I could go. ‘Sorry officer, you understand how precious these little seedlings are so early in the season’. But I might just tough it out.

And fill the house with absurd numbers of plants and flowers. And hope that a week on from now things will be on the upward curve.