Spring
arrived at some point in February - whether it will stay or not, who
knows. The primrose flowered abundantly after a slow start and by the
close of the month the mini-daffs had bloomed and begun to be
consumed by the rabbit or pigeon or whatever it is that eats
daffodils.
The
frogs surfaced around the middle of the month and were active in the
pond as you can see in my above video link. This year I was ahead of them, so there is not as much algae
hiding the pond below.
In
the poly tunnel, I began sowing seeds and tending over-wintered
chilies, herbs and lemongrass. 4 bees, 2 brimstones, 2 brown/red
butterflies have been spotted and the female blackbird is collecting
nesting material. As the month closed, all my growing spaces had been
dug over ready and the mud paths trodden down - leaving fixing the
raised strawberry beds and weeding around them, the tubs, and the shed
to go.
February
closed and March, AKA SPRING, began. The sunny warmer spell ran into
hiding and our old pal 'wet n windy' stole the scene. Down the
kitchen track, AKA path to poly tunnel, the primroses and mini
daffodils were blooming to the right and pinky-purple flowers on
spotty leaved plants to the left by the pond.
Above
you can see the right hand side of my back yard in SPRING. The clump
of primrose that Liz gave me 2-3 years ago is doing splendidly -
flowering from January or February and currently, during March, still
full of pale yellow blooms. The pinky-purple flowers of the spotted
leaved plant I can never recall the name of are also on show - though
partially hidden in this view of them, and a few mini-daffodils were
present until a wild rabbit or wood pigeon munched them.
Here
is the other half of the back yard - frog pond, bird station, and
trees/shrubs - a wildlife paradise! To local humans, my yard looks
like a messy jungle of overgrown debris - but to me, and to the
creatures that visit and live there, it looks beautiful. No straight
lines or clumps of flowers in sight - no golf-perfect grass lawn - no
tidy shrubbery patches - but true wilderness! Productive too - the
parsley and lettuce leaves in the mug came from the poly tunnel, even
if the rhubarb came from the allotment plot!
