Spring is starting to work its miracle in the garden

IT’S amazing what a bit of sunshine at this time of the year can do for the garden.

Early blossom has begun to appear and the tulips are looking promising.

Primroses are providing bright spots of colour and there are even signs that the grass is starting to grow.

In the greenhouse, the salads sown last month are sprouting fast and in a few weeks the evergreen agapanthus will be ready to go outdoors.

At the moment, they are sharing space in the greenhouse with pots of hardy agapanthus, left over from the front border.

By potting these up and bringing them under cover, I’m hoping they might flower a little earlier in the summer.

With no leaf mould bins yet in place, we piled up many of last autumn’s fallen leaves beneath the azaleas and now drumstick primulas are pushing through this thick covering.

There may be other things that have yet to appear from beneath the leafy blanket but, as with any new garden, you don’t know what you’ve got until things start to pop up.

My neighbour told me that wild orchids grow in the long grass in front of our house, so I’ll be keeping my eyes open for those and hoping I don’t catch them with the mower.

Meanwhile, the birds are busy in the spring sunshine, collecting twigs and moss for their nests.

We have a close-up view of their activities, thanks to our new security cameras.

We are fortunate enough to live in a small community where crime is rare, but after one attempted burglary and a bad break-in next door when we lived in the city, it seemed only sensible to install an alarm.

Except alarms are now old hat and what you really need are motion sensor cameras.

So that’s what we have and they are constantly being triggered by inquisitive blue tits keen to have their close-ups on film.

We also have a bird’s-eye view of the pheasants that strut about the lawn and one alert was caused by a large bumblebee, fresh out of hibernation and wondering where to find nectar.

I’m hoping the cameras will alert me to the deer and rabbits that roam freely around here, feasting on the fresh foliage of shrubs and flowers, but already they’ve proved useful in letting me see where a delivery driver left a consignment of plants when I wasn’t at home.

If I felt inclined, I could even watch the grass grow, but so far the only nefarious activity caught on camera has been squirrels on the bird table.

Meanwhile I’m still trying to decide what to do with the patch of grass beside the patio.

Even on dry days this it squelches like a sponge. My original idea was to plant a low box hedge, but box doesn’t like having its feet wet, so I’ll need to come up with another plan and then wait for a very dry spell to carry it out, otherwise I’ll simply create a sea of mud.