Tulips and Daffodils

I just love the colour of these tulips

The weather is so much warmer, I can almost see the buds on everything growing and opening.  I have been weeding, mostly only annual weeds that have germinated on the surface of the soil.  I’ve been planting things that didn’t make it into the ground last autumn.  Interestingly the daffodils and tulips are flowering together.  Clematis Armandii is jsut opening its buds even though its leaves look rather wind damaged.

my first tulip on the 20th March

This one's rather beautiful too!

Euphorbia have amazing bracts - just like flowers

A Walk Through Time

On Sunday we walked at Corviano, a true walk through time as we passed a mediaeval castle, a longobard church with human – shaped sarcofogi cut into the stone, an Etruscan wall, basins cut into the rock where the Etrucans fermented their wine and most amazing of all – Iron Age habitations in the cliff face that we could enter and see the way water was collected, and where the fire was situated within the room.  The entrance was originally via a rope ladder with a wooden platform but later inhabitants had added entrances from above.

Wild asparagus emerging from the ground

The hunter-gatherer of the family was intent on finding wild asparagus while I was more interested in the wild flowers.  there were banks of blue and white Anemones; beautifully paterned, new Cyclamen leaves were emerging from the leaf litter.  I was experimenting with a new camera with a macro zoom that allowed me to photgraph details I couldn’t see with the naked eye – see the flowers and compare the photos of the tiny new sedum just visible on the volcanic rock.

Enough asparagus was found to make an omlette for supper!

Winter to Spring in 2 days

I don’t know how the plants survived at all!  On Tuesday and Thursday everything was buried under  a couple of inches of snow, then Friday, Saturday and Sunday were wonderful, spring days.  Blue sky, real warmth in the sun, no wind just perfect

Snow from my window

weather to get on with pruning the olives and weeding.

I’ve decided to take a photo inventary of what’s flowering in the garden on the 2nd weekend of the month, if you click on the photo on the right  you can see them all.   The Apricot and plum were in flower, does that mean there will be no fruit this year with the cold weather last week?  See post for walk at Norchia for just how different the weather was on Sunday.

An Etruscan walk

Following a week that included two days of snow that settled even on the roads within the city, Sunday was the first really warm spring day.

We joined Archeotuscia for a guided walk at Norchia.  The Etruscan tombs here are craved into the toffa rock.  We were able to walk on the steps carved into the cliffs by the Etruscans during the 4th to the 2nd centuries BC.  On the other side of the valley to the Necropolis we visited the site of the Etruscan town which it is believed had a population over over 1000 inhabitants and saw the remains of Roman – medieval settlement including the old consular road the Via Clodia.

Along the way it was a real pleasure to see so many wild flowers,  click on the photo to see all the flowers.