The ‘Beast of the East’ has certainly set us back a bit this year, which in many ways is just as well given how behind I feel in the garden. Ben did the first grass cut yesterday and the hawthorn hedge is only now unfurling it’s leaves. The Horse Chestnut tree also only opened it’s buds this week and the Birch trees remain brown.

Looking at some of my photos from last year I would say that the plants are about two weeks behind where they were last year. Oh well, I am sure that they will catch up. As Lao Tse said ” Nature doesn’t rush but everything gets done”, a saying that I always find most comforting.

What is disappointing is that although all the daffodils are now out, and therefore not much use for picking for the house, there isn’t anything else that is ready. I do have a cut flower patch this year and some of the tulip buds are coming up but they are not really long enough to pick.

Oh, and another thing, for the third year in a row we appear to have no frogspawn in our pond. I often hear that the frogs will find us, but they don’t seem to be happy to make the long slog here. I do think that for the first Spring we were here the pond was not a very hospitable environment- it was full of dead leaves and not much else. Having dredged it a bit and added pond weed and marginal plants I was hoping that the better set up would attract some adventurous  amphibians. The nearest water is a ‘balancing pond’ the other side of the busway and perhaps all that concrete puts them off. I am tempted to go out with a jar and see if I can find some to bring across. Maybe later.