Is this the beginning of spring?

After 6 weeks of clearing up after Storm Eowyn we are just about ready to welcome our first visitors on Friday. We needed 3 bonfires to clear the huge piles of sticks and fallen timber- although we will keep the Eucryphia wood from the fallen limbs in the glen as it’s excellent dense fire wood.

Spring appears to be here- visible in the tiny erythroniums, the purple dens canis type first, to be followed quickly by ‘White Beauty’ and the first anemones pushing through the leafmould top dressing in the Rock Garden. The big leaved rhododendrons are not performing as they did last year- they’re exhausted after flowering hard and making a huge amount of seed- but they are exhibiting a few token blossoms to remind us of their beauty. And there’s masses of smaller rhododendrons to come into flower over the next 3 months!

The magnolias are just getting into their stride. These past few nights of ground frost have been worrying but they appear to have come through untouched. All round the garden you can see the great beacons of flower against the surprisingly blue sky- I think there are 10 or 11 of them. They’re certainly ‘worth a look’ as the Gibsons used to say!