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Marchby Ken Clark - 08:35 on 15 March 2010The stars of our garden at this present time must be the Hellebores, we have about six varieties at the moment; the white variety has the common name of Christmas rose. They have a wonderful display of blooms, that sadly require you to bend down to admire, as most of the plants have drooping flowers. There is a particular nice example near the church door growing happily in the borders. When I was checking out the Wikipedia (computer encyclopaedia) the hellebores have had links with witchcraft and folklore legends. The snow drops have been a pleasant sight, much nicer than the snow storms. The crocuses, especially the yellow ones, are pushing their way through the grass to brighten our days. Banksides that have enjoyed full sun seem to produce the earliest show of the crocuses, of course you need to plant the bulbs in the autumn to reap the rewards now.
You will have also noticed the daffodils pushing their way through the ground to hopefully give some more glorious colour soon.
There is a lot of bird activity around now, most of them seemed to have found a mate and are busy nest building. Some crows I saw in the churchyard were picking up old leaves and sticks then transporting these to repair their nest in the tall trees.
The crows, unlike other birds which rebuild a new nest each year, seem to always have nests which they use as perches and roosting spots when not in use for rearing their offspring.
The collared doves that nested in my garden last year seem to have returned to re-build their nest for this season, do you think if I have a word with them they might keep quiet this year?
I am still looking for colour when I am out and today all I’ve seen is brown and grey as I glance at the trees, no sign of any greenery; however the Willows have a flash of silver as the “Pussy Willow” catkins unfolds, The Hazel shrubs also have their catkins which look like lambs tails. A stroll through the plantation at New Lambton will give you a sight of another catkin bearing tree; the Alder it will be showing signs of the male flowers (catkins) which will give the bees some early pollen. The female fruit of the Alder are cone shaped and these will produce the seeds in autumn.
The harsh winter has taken its toll on one of our woody shrubs in our garden. It had evergreen silver leaves, seems strange classifying silver leaves as evergreen, what I mean is they keep their leaves all year round. Well this one used to but sadly it is dead. The garden centres will be doing a roaring trade this year as I am sure I am not the only one to loose a shrub.
The cider I have been trying to produce has also been a disaster, I think I may have left it in the demijohn too long as it seemed to have a small amount of mould on it. I filtered it off but the taste left a tingling taste on my tongue, well it was better than my tongue dropping off (my wife might disagree). So rather than getting a bad tummy upset, I have decided not to consume anymore, there is always next year.
Keep warm; you will soon be packing your scarf away and enjoying your gardens.
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