THE WEATHER -

The start of the month brought cold weather, with rain, sleet and snow showers, and frost overnight. Warming up a bit by the 7th, but back to very cold weather again with a biting north-easterly wind by the 11th, and remaining cold up till the 24th, when spring finally arrived - but only for one day! Back to normal on the 25th - 27th, turning quite cold. However, Easter Monday, the 28th, was a lovely warm day with sunshine for most of the day. All change again though on the 29th with heavy rain until the end of the month.

Maximum temperature 17°C (64°F), minimum temperature minus 4°C (26°F).

In the conservatory, my Clivia miniata is looking magnificent! This a bulbuos plant, with evergreen strap-shaped leaves. Mine began flowering at the end of January, and has been getting better as the weeks go by. There are currently eight flower heads on it, a couple of which are still in bud and will be at their best towards the end of the month and into next month. The plant forms offsets around the main bulb, and these can be split from the parent plant after a couple of years, and grown on to produce separate plants. I've left mine in its pot with the offsets, a few of which are now of flowering size, hence the wonderful show! The flowers also produce large seed pods and the seeds can be sown in late summer when they are ripe.

A lovely plant in flower this month is Iris unguicularis. This used to be known as Iris stylosa, but that was too easy, so the boffins decided to call it Iris unguicularis, just to confuse us mere mortals!! It is an evergreen low growing Iris with narrow leathery strap-shaped leaves. It grows to around 1 foot tall, and enjoys full sun. The flowers always come as a surprise to me, as it seems as though one day there's no sign of them and the next day there they are!

It's not always necessary to have flowers to give you colour in the garden. This lovely Euphorbia "Craigeburn" has wonderful deep red leaves on stems topped with bright red bracts. What could be more colourful? The plant isn't in flower in the picture, but the flowers are lime-green when they appear in late March and early April.

Another plant which gives colour without flowers is Hebe "Silver Dollar". This is a small evergreen shrub with grey-green and silver variegated foliage for most of the year with a touch of pink, but at this time of the year, the cold weather brings out the pink colouring so that it is very dominant on the tips of the stems.

Last month I featured the spring Snowflake, Leucojum vernum, and this month, it's the turn of its taller cousin, the summer Snowflake, Leucojum aestivum. This is an altogether bigger plant, with green shiny linear leaves, and tall stems bearing several pendent white bell-shaped flowers, tipped with lime green. For a short time at the end of March, both the spring and summer Snowflakes are in flower, and you can see the difference between the two plants. Leucojum aestivum, although called the summer snowflake, actually flowers in mid- to late-spring, and has finished flowering well before summer is here!

My Edgworthia chrysantha is in full flower now, and has flowered a full month before it flowered last year. Of course, we have had a very mild winter again, and this is probably the reason. Although the foliage is unremarkable when it appears in April, this is a wonderful shrub, which flowers on bare stems, with clusters of yellow flowers which are very furry, almost like white felt, on the outside. This is the plant whose stems are often used bleached in flower arrangements, especially Ikebana, and are known as Mitsumata.

That's all for this month...... Happy Gardening!!

Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Collared Dove, Crow, Dunnock, Goldfinch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Robin, Rook, Seagull, Siskin, Starling, Thrush, Wood Pigeon, Wren.

GROWTH
Patience Strong

This is the time of growth - of green things bursting into flower
Urged on towards fulfilment by some vast and secret power.......

It is a law that things evolve towards maturity -
The fledgling in the nest, the babe, the puppy and the tree.......

We know that sun and showers of rain assist the flowers to grow -
But how and why do they respond - that's what I'd like to know.......

And so the soul of man must grow from darkness into light -
The real and unseen part of us that's hidden from our sight
Is growing, and shall be revealed beyond the mists of Time -
By pain and struggle it will reach the perfect and sublime.