Spring is coming, birds are singing,
Everything is bright and gay,
Nature’s world is once more waking,
Lovely flowers bend and sway.
By Jennifer Bradbury, aged 10. 1956.
O.K. So it's not Brontë, but my mum was very proud when I read this at assembly.
Hurray!! Here we are –SPRING − after what always seems an endless winter. Nature never lets us down and always it seems to me more amazing and more beautiful than ever. It started with the joyful aconites, then the demure snowdrops and after that it's every man for himself: primulas, hellebores, pulmonaria, tête-à-tête and crocus resplendent in yellow and purple, and so many other old favourites still green but there and ready to delight in their own good time.
Geoff and I were eager to start our gardening season and when a spell of mild weather arrived in February, we were soon on the phone to arrange the first gardening session of 2015. If we had realised how hard we were to work on that day we may have put it off a little longer. Winter had thrown down some 15 large bags of debris: leaves, twigs, branches and dead plant material onto the garden, but as soon as that lot was cleared, we could see our garden once more and all the promise of a new season − always bigger and better than ever before ( we hope).
I do feel that this winter has been a little kinder to us than recent winters that robbed us of some special and much loved plants, but we shall still find spaces, as we always do, for new planting; as I keep reminding Geoff, people don't come here to admire our soil, so, hopefully, we will acquire some nice new stock for the garden. Last year I was very keen to plant lots of foxgloves in a shady area and they looked splendid but they are biannual, so there is nothing to see this year. We will plant some more so that in years to come, we should a have an annual succession of flowers.
Last year our lawns were looking splendid, thanks to all the loving care given to them by Geoff. To me ‘grass is grass’ but Geoff sees it as a challenge and he knows just what to do to achieve the perfect lawn. Last year, he offered me 50p for every weed I found in the lawn and believe me I looked but sadly for me I was no better off after intense scrutiny.
Well, dear garden friends, I will end here, although I must just tell you that we plan another open garden day in the summer, also, an exhibition of all the lovely photographs that Chris has taken of the garden − "A year in the Parsonage garden" perhaps? Don't forget to come and see us and of course the garden. Here's to 2015!!!!