Up the garden path – New leaves spotted – daffodil path worked shocker – And actual flowers

December, January and February are ever so slightly depressing months in the garden. Garden designers can spout on about architectural plants, the bark on a white silver birch. And how beautiful the frost and snow is.

But let me say this:

Anyone who lives on a smallholding and has to get up early in the morning, when it is snowing, to dig paths for the sheep knows that they are liars.

So when you see actual spring, springing, it is all quite exciting. First came the hellebores, then the crocuses, and we are now well into early spring. We have... leaves... yes; new leaves have been spotted in the garden. In particular, rose leaves, and crab apple leaves. 

We are still clearing away poplar leaves right at the moment... you know how it is, a poplar can produce enough leaves for a small city and then once you have collected them all into black bags, it all rots down, and you still need to buy soil improver from the garden centre. We did remove a lot of them before winter struck, but there are always more left to tackle.

Did I mention the daffodil path? Yeah, I think I might have mentioned that. Last year I planted daffodils by a path I go down to feed the chickens.  And let me tell you... there are now 7 daffodils in flower. 

I normally give a weather report... when I was weeding today it was cold, and there was a grey sky but not too windy. Nice weather for the time of year. It must have rained during the night, everything was very damp.

With the rose leaves coming out, we are defiantly in that cycle. I am waiting to see the first real tree blossom of the year... apart from the winter flowering cherry that doesn’t count... it is coming. 

As I was weeding today, looking at the bed, it was full of such delights as forget-me-nots. Aquilegia, and a few fennel seedlings... oh... very exciting. It was only a few weeks ago that the gardening year really started.

This time of year things suddenly start accelerating... we are clearing beds like crazy, and we will be getting the veg beds ready as and when the weather is actually good enough to do that work.

We’ve noticed the pheasants are getting tamer again; they must have had a hard winter. They eat the seed that falls down onto the ground when we feed the birds. This year was a hard winter, and so... we have seen a lot more of them than normal.

I guess if we were running a proper farm, we would probably do something about it... but we aren’t... and we like having posh birds in our garden!