So, the first few days of proper spring as the vernal equinox took place at exactly 21:24 (Greenwich Mean Time) on Monday March 20. The spring weather has yet to appear though as we have had showers and heavy rain all week with the best of the sunshine first thing in the morning. However, I…
Category: Garden Diary
Posts about my garden and the changes through the seasons
Six on Saturday | Middle-March
The month of March is marching on with only a couple of days until we reach the vernal equinox when daylight hours equal the hours of darkness. This is when spring truly starts for me. I was going to do a post purely about the yellow flowers appearing in my garden this week, but could…
Six on Saturday | The Big Chill
Forget the start of Spring, winter returned with a vengeance this week to many parts of the UK and northern Europe. Fortunately in the south-west it was rain and not snow. Still too cold and wet to do anything much in the garden, but the only thing I need to do is go round and…
Six on Saturday | Spring Forward
Although the first of March is considered to be the beginning of spring in meteorological terms I tend to stick with the astronomical terms – the Vernal equinox falls on Monday March 20th this year. But there is no doubt that life in the garden is beginning to emerge with the longer hours of daylight….
Only the Blues
Iris reticulata ‘Alida’ (Alida: pale silky blue, mid-blue fall with yellow blotch.) Iris reticulata ‘Clairette’ (Clairette: A distinctive sky blue iris with purple falls marked white. Light blue, golden blotch.) Iris reticulata ‘Rhapsody’ (Rhapsody: Blue bird blue, falls royal-blue with yellow and white rimmed blotch.) These little beauties all began to flower last week and…
february flowers
Last week the crocuses, among my pretty marbled Cyclamen hederifolium leaves, were nothing more than spiky leaves poking up through the ground. By mid-week the yellow crocuses were in flower. Yesterday’s sun painted a pretty picture. Flowering in a container are my new Iris reticulata ‘Clairette’ with sky-blue flowers, each fall being beautifully adorned with…
frosty friday
In the 6 years since moving to the southwest of Cornwall I have only seen a handful of frosty mornings, including the Beast from the East back in 2018. This week has been exceptional with frost most days and yesterday the hardest one yet. Temperatures that don’t normally fall below zero were down to -3….
Six on Saturday | Annual Round-up 2022
We have reached the time of year when I take stock of the garden over the past 12 months, reviewing the successes and the failures. It won’t surprise anyone who lives in the UK that this has been the driest year of the six I have been living in Cornwall. As I did in my…
Six on Saturday | till the cows come home
“Remember, Remember the 5th of November, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot I see no reason Why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot. Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ’twas his intent To blow up the King and the Parliament Three score barrels of powder below Poor old England to overthrow…” Given the shambles of the British Parliament these…
Six on Saturday | October Colours #5
We are heading into my least favourite time of year when the clocks fall back tomorrow and it will be dark by 5:30 pm. I should have been born a bear so I could hibernate now until spring. After a fairly soggy week in which I did just manage to get the lawn mowed, but…
Cornwall in Colours 