"Hardy, old fashioned narcissi from those days still flower, many in their original rows and plots. Earliest to emerge are the yellows of double Van Sion (known locally as the Lent lily), Henry Irving with dainty trumpets on long stems, Princep, Helios and Carlton, already fading and past their best, succeeded by Victoria."
"On a rare day of sunshine, bumblebees seek rosemary's blue flowers, and a brimstone flits across bright green leaves of poisonous monkshood and the day lilies, nibbled by rabbits. Startling is the increase in the sun's warmth and height; a tracery of tree shadows is cast across the southern slope, and the old magnolia, recently pruned by the local tree surgeon of a large mossy branch split by the winter gales, is thick with purple-flushed goblets of light."
"Downhill, in the sheltered valley of the Radland millstream, tattered blooms of Fortune (an orange cupped daffodil) mingle with dog's mercury, arum (lords-and-ladies) and tarnished hart's tongue fern. Bluebell leaves and ramsons creep in from old hedge-banks beneath a tangle of slumped branches and uprooted trees, all coated in mosses, polypody ferns and pennywort, perhaps becoming akin to temperate rainforest."
A former market garden and orchard, abandoned since the 1950s, displays spring's arrival through successive waves of daffodil varieties including Van Sion, Henry Irving, and Victoria. The landscape features cherry plum blossoms, magnolia flowers, and primroses alongside returning wildlife including woodpeckers and chiffchaffs. Bumblebees visit rosemary while brimstone butterflies navigate the garden's plants. The increasing sun's warmth and height create dramatic shadows across southern slopes. Downhill in a sheltered valley, Fortune daffodils mingle with dog's mercury, arum, and ferns. The woodland enclave develops characteristics of temperate rainforest with mosses, polypody ferns, and pennywort coating fallen branches and uprooted trees.
#spring-garden #daffodils-and-bulbs #wildlife-and-nature #abandoned-orchard #seasonal-transformation
Read at www.theguardian.com
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