Dear reader...
EVERY YEAR AS spring approaches, I am filled with anticipation. After months of looking at a wet, frosty or snowy garden through the windows, I can now get out and walk round. The question I need an answer to is will my camellia be covered in red blooms? An old plant, it flowers only intermittently. For each year of beautiful flowers, I endure three or four of nothing. I know my gardening friends and colleagues would have no qualms about discarding this old plant. But somehow, I always feel sorry for it and so it survives. I can only hope this will be another year when it will delight me. One thing I do know will be putting on a brave show are the daffodils. They never fail to create a burst of colour whatever the weather. Growing in borders and in clumps in the lawn, their bright yellow trumpets are a joy. My dilemma is whether to pick them or not. It seems a shame not to have a vase filled with flowers from my own garden in the house, but they last so much longer outside. Further afield, the countryside is waking up, as days lengthen and get warmer. It only takes a little sunshine to make a huge difference. One day a tree can be bare, the next it is covered in unfurling lime-green leaves. Clouds of white blossom cloak hedgerows, as the blackthorn puts on its spring display. A stroll down local lanes is accompanied by trilling bird song that equals any choir. What can be better than Britain in the spring?