March in My Hesperides Garden – in like a lion

And it looks like it is OUT like a lion too!!  The end of February we had snow and freezing winds that did quite a lot of damage to the garden including burning the leaves of the olives which have lost more leaves than I’ve ever seen happen before, I don’t know if this will effect the crop for this year but certainly the trees will be weakened by the lack of leaves. The buds on the wisteria were just beginning to swell but the wind and minus 8°C temperatures have burnt them you so that although there may be some later flowers, I won’t have the wonderful display of previous years. But not everything is doom and despair in the garden this month.

In a vase on Monday – Feels like spring

Monday gives us all the change to experiment with our flower arranging skills and to participate in Cathy at Rambling in the Garden‘s challenge to find flowers from our own gardens to pick and plonk or arrange in a vase.  After a week when each day was windier and colder than the last, today is warm, sunny and definitely more spring-like than it has been.

In a vase on Monday – Flags and Princes

There are now some tulips flowering in the garden, as I shared with you yesterday.  This seems very early but I was expecting that they would flower early due to the cold temperatures in November and December.  Last weeks vase of Purple Prince tulips have lasted wonderfully well and are if anything looking better now than they did last Monday.

5 minutes of amazing light

Today it has been raining all day, with strong cold winds it wasn’t a day to spend time outside.  Late in the afternoon I watched Friday’s Gardener’s World (available on You Tube; just as the programme finished I noticed it had begun to rain again but that the sun was also shining very brightly just before it went down.  I rushed out with the camera (it was 18.10) to try to capture the amazing light.

Flowering today in my garden

Our weather is strange; three or four days of very cold weather and rain; then a couple of days of glorious sunshine, so bright it was almost too strong to be eating lunch on the terrace without some shade!

In a vase on Monday – one day my prince will come

Every Monday Cathy, from Rambling in the garden, invites us to join her in finding flowers in our own garden to pick and put in a vase to enjoy in our homes.  The meme comes with a warning – it can become very addictive!

In a vase on Monday – More Tulips

After the freezing winds last week I was pleased to see that the greenhouse heater did its job and maintained the temperature at just above zero centigrade.  The tulips in pots are taking much longer to flower than when there is more sun and more warmth to induce them to flowering.