This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Sunday 20 March 2011

1st Day of Spring

Hooray, its the first day of Spring!

Our clocks will 'spring' forward in the UK next Sunday and will give us more daylight hours for gardening.

I was at Rowallane Garden, a National Trust property, over the weekend and took some photos that look as if Spring is truly on its way...
Above: I loved playing with frog spawn when I was little. At Rowallane, the pond was full of it and I thought the wire ladder someone had made was a job well done;  it'll allow the frogs to get out of the water.
I admired their rhubarb, must be quite a mature plant. (Correction: this isn't rhubarb!)
Some lovely views.
Most of the spring colour hasn't arrived yet at Rowallane; I'll have to go back to see the numerous rhododendrons and azaleas in flower.

My jobs at the weekend - removing bramble, cutting back hawthorn, tidying beds, weeding and sowing seed. Happy Spring!

8 comments:

  1. Super photos Kelli! In the States we changed our clocks forward already last week. It is nice to have an extra hour of daylight in the evening to garden. Happy spring!

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  2. Hooray! Happy spring to you! I was looking at tadpoles today swimming about happily in a friend's pond...but it's Autumn here, not spring! Funny things.

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  3. Are you sure that's Rhubarb? It looks to me as if it might be giant Gunnera.
    I have just bought a Buddleia in the hope of attracting more butterflies into my garden.
    Frogspawn will always remind me of the tapioca pudding we used to get at school :-(

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  4. Beautiful pictures! Especially the close ups. I had no idea you ran your clocks up also. I hope you enjoy the extra hour of sunshine!

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  5. Thanks for your comments.

    Mark, you could be right about the rhubarb being gunnera. I did kind of wonder what type of rhubarb would have that shape of leaf - lol!

    Frogspawn tapioca puddying, oh dear! I'd probably never eat tapioca again if I liked it which i don't. lol.

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  6. We sprung forward two week-ends ago. Still trying to adjust. Your greening of spring is ahead of us. I tour the garden daily looking for signs that the earth is awakening and warming, and it is: daffodils poking through, tulips coming along, the delphinium are just barely sprouting under their dead leaves. Hurray! They made it through another winter. And my newly planted rhubarb did make it through the winter.

    Your photos are lovely. You had a good day. cheers. ann

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  7. What a nice post for the first day of Spring! Love the close ups of the bee and the moth.

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  8. What beautiful photos. Looks like spring has definitely made it to your neck of the woods. Even a little bee buzzing around!

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