The Spring Flower Ballet
I get a sort of seasonal colour blindness in the darkest months of the year. Its as if the fading light turned down the volume on my colour vision so I see the world in more muted tones. I often wonder if that is why peoples' clothes tend towards darker colours as the days shorten.
And then March happens.
Now I am not disregarding the hardy heroes of mid winter, the tough little crocus, the snowdrop, the violas and more recently the very early flowering narcissi. They brighten a moment when I happen upon them - but the days are so short and opportunities to linger are scarce. so for me it is early March before the ballet begins.
Like lots of things in nature it starts slowly. I will notice in the woods a small patch of Lesser Celandine catching the winter sun with their golden flowers. Then a discarded plant pot near my potting bench presents s tangle of blue and yellow forget-me-nots. I will almost put my boot in the mound of lavender coloured vinca as I scramble down a bank to check the pond for frogspawn. With these first orchestral notes the colour comes back to my world.
Then everywhere I look I see colour. The herbaceous border shows hellebores in delicate cream and fuchsia pink and in the palest green you can imagine. The planters around my back door explode with different types of narcissi in an infinite variety of yellows - from the palest primrose shade to the full cream butter colour. This year the gorse bush (Ulex european) that struggles for light with the hazels has decided to show its coconut scented yellow flowers in mid march.
Yellow being a theme for Spring - the wonderful bee friendly, shaggy headed, dandelion is making its presence known and even the badly tended lawn is playing its part with a crop of friendly faced daisies.
I love this time of year. Soon the more cultivated plants will come on stage. But these wild and early garden flowers seem to me like wonderfully disorderly outliers, who flout the rules and start the music of colour way before the conductor has queued them it.
Bravo my lovelies.
end//
And then March happens.
Now I am not disregarding the hardy heroes of mid winter, the tough little crocus, the snowdrop, the violas and more recently the very early flowering narcissi. They brighten a moment when I happen upon them - but the days are so short and opportunities to linger are scarce. so for me it is early March before the ballet begins.
Like lots of things in nature it starts slowly. I will notice in the woods a small patch of Lesser Celandine catching the winter sun with their golden flowers. Then a discarded plant pot near my potting bench presents s tangle of blue and yellow forget-me-nots. I will almost put my boot in the mound of lavender coloured vinca as I scramble down a bank to check the pond for frogspawn. With these first orchestral notes the colour comes back to my world.
Then everywhere I look I see colour. The herbaceous border shows hellebores in delicate cream and fuchsia pink and in the palest green you can imagine. The planters around my back door explode with different types of narcissi in an infinite variety of yellows - from the palest primrose shade to the full cream butter colour. This year the gorse bush (Ulex european) that struggles for light with the hazels has decided to show its coconut scented yellow flowers in mid march.
Yellow being a theme for Spring - the wonderful bee friendly, shaggy headed, dandelion is making its presence known and even the badly tended lawn is playing its part with a crop of friendly faced daisies.
I love this time of year. Soon the more cultivated plants will come on stage. But these wild and early garden flowers seem to me like wonderfully disorderly outliers, who flout the rules and start the music of colour way before the conductor has queued them it.
Bravo my lovelies.
end//
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