Post Comment Love 12-14 April

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo after our Easter break. Here you’ll find a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed from the linky, and if older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

This week, finally, I’ve been out in the garden and doing some gardening. And it felt good to be back outside, of course that was helped by the warmer temperatures we’ve got at the moment, and they’re very welcome though they’re not due to last for too long.

I’ve also been enjoying my tulips, though they have taken a bit of a battering in the most recent wind - but that means the grass is strewn with tulip petals, so it’s not all bad.

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My garden in March

In last month’s update from my garden there was the promise of colour, but it hadn’t yet materialised - well in March, it materialised with daffodils, blossom and the tulips making their mark. That wasn’t all though, and thankfully looking back you can see how much the garden has transformed in a month, with Spring taking its first tentative steps - thankfully!

These three terracotta pots have kept me busy over the month, with MOH quipping at one point that our daffodils probably had the most attention than any anywhere else, which is actually a fair comment. These egg yolk yellow daffodils were the first to flower, not surprisingly as they were the ones that got into earth in the autumn. The errant or curly wurly ones that I didn’t plant until the new year flowered much later, but they did flower and they brought their pale gentleness to the garden as they did.

You’ll have seen this photo before I’m sure, and I make no apologies for sharing it again as I really like it and it was the first time on ‘daffodil watch’ that I had flowers, the blue skies were an absolute plus too.

It was good to see the crab apple tree spring back into life too. I’d pruned it at the end of the summer last year, to reduce its size and give it a better shape and over the winter it acquired a bird feeder. Unfortunately the only birds that were interested were a couple of crows who were doing their utmost to get to the fatballs it holds. Not wanting to encourage the crows into my crab apples (there’s a lot of them here, with nests in the taller trees a few gardens away) I moved the bird feeder out of the tree and hung it on the wall, as we’ve nowhere else for it at the moment.

Watching the crows and their confusion on their next visit made me feel bad (briefly), but also they were quite comedic too - they haven’t found where I’ve hung it temporarily yet either, though we do still have a crow or two patrolling the grass every now and then.

In terms of blossom our small nectarine tree really put on a show. This plant came from dad and it’s our first year of seeing what it gets up to, and so far it’s going well! I repotted it in the autumn and as we want to eventually grow it in front of the wall on a more permanent basis, I’d pruned it so there was a central stem and two branches on each side with the intention of tying it to a cane support. I didn’t get around to that before winter, which given the wind and storms was probably a good thing, and its rewarded me with some early and very pretty blossom - I’m keen to see what it gets up to over the next few months now.

My tulips were also showing signs of promise early in the month, and are clearly happy in their new location - which while windy is also protected and of course they get the heat from the garage wall behind them. I love how they’re so very green when they’re at this stage.

Here’s the errant daffodils, some were quite tall in the end, but some of the others not so much!

They are much more delicate in their colouring though, and while they’re lovely I much prefer the egg yolk yellow sort!

Throughout the month the acer which we brought with us has come back to life too. It started with small buds, which gradually turned into these folded up leaves. It’s great to have the colour back by our back (front) door - and I think there’s more leaves than I remember in previous years.

Although I’d been keeping an eye on the tulips, they did take me by surprise and were suddenly in full flower. I think they too are enjoying the more open, and sunnier, garden and have come much earlier than they would usually in our previous garden. That gave me a headache though as my patio pots were still full of daffodils, but I didn’t want to miss out on these either.

I soon solved that conundrum by moving the tulips onto the patio and arranging, and rearranging, the daffodil pots in the large border so that we could see them from the house. I also learnt that our soil is saturated, I bought some snowdrops in the green and needed to plant them, but also needed to mix in some compost to the soil so that they stood a chance. Knowing this I was glad I put the daffodils in pots, but now I’m thinking I’ll keep them in pots and half dig them into the border - especially as know I’ve worked out the optimum spot for them all.

So a burst of colour this month - and aren’t the bold tulips against the lime green of the euphorbia just divine? I’m thinking I should pot up some of that euphorbia so I can bring that into the patio pots as a foil for the tulips next year - I know they spread when planted in borders, so maybe this could be a way to keep them more contained!

Other than these pots, we’ve still not been gardening proper this month thanks mostly to the weather - let’s hope April brings better weather and more opportunities to spend time outside in our new garden.

Walking East Stoke's lanes this February

What is it they say about best laid plans?

Yes, well here we are more than a month after my first post in this series and a bit later than intended, and a lot wetter than I’d like - so that meant we didn’t get to walk the Red Gutter at all this month.

Though we did get to walk along the bridleway to Elston for a fantastic Sunday lunch, so it’s not all bad. And as well as a roast spud or two (on my plate) there was lichen along the way, which is always a win for me!

AN EARLY FEBRUARY CARPET OF SNOWDROPS

And just as we approached the village I spotted a carpet of early February snowdrops alongside us in a small wooded area. An absolute joy - in our London life we would spot some in the garden, but to see anything on this scale we’d need to take ourselves off to either a National Trust garden or a woodland a car journey away, so it was quite the treat.

FIELDS ALONGSIDE MOOR LANE

MOOR LANE

In fact looking back to the view from the bridge in last month’s post, I think it’s higher - I told you it felt like it’d been a wet, wet month.

MOOR LANE

MOOR LANE

Later in the month we walked Moor Lane again and noticed some work in progress to lay hedging - I’m guessing this is a job that’s not done every year given the size of the trunks that have been cut and laid, and is a way of maintaining the land. Part way along willow had been weaved at the top of the stakes, which I’m sure brings strength and structure to the newly laid hedges.

MOOR LANE

This month we also walked turned off Moor Lane towards Thorpe walking along Main Street which brought a much welcomed pop of colour - which was much needed in a dull month.

MAIN STREET

MAIN STREET

We walked through Thorpe and out the other side, turning around shortly after this photo of a not-so-recently fallen tree, which is clearly making the most of its new surroundings and outlook on life, something I’m sure many of us can relate to too!

MAIN STREET

This month the skies have been large, they’ve been grey but increasingly blue in the breaks in the rain - and as the month went on, more and more blossom appeared in the hedgerows - it really is nature’s way of letting you know there’s something better around the corner isn’t it?

MUCH PRETTIER THAN THE A46

This pretty white - and most likely blackthorn blossom - seemed to turn the hedgerows frothy as the month continued, and it’s way more prettier than a view of the A46 as we once again walked along the bridleway to Elston. I’m hoping for a drier few months ahead, I’ll let you know how that worked out soon…

It wasn’t until the end of the month that we walked down School Lane to the River Trent. And boy did we choose a spectacular day for that - pink blossom, blue skies and actual warmth from the sun. You could be fooled into thinking it really was spring, but I think it was most likely ‘fools spring’ as it didn’t last.

SCHOOL LANE

CHURCH LANE

CHURCH LANE - A FIELD, NOT THE RIVER

CHURCH LANE - STILL A FIELD NOT THE RIVER TRENT (SURPRISINGLY)

The photos above taken just past the church on Church Lane show just how wet February was - these puddles - and that seems a complete under-description, are or were fields. Instead they looked as if a new river had formed a mile or so away from the Trent - but it was great to capture the cloud’s reflection in one of them.

The ditches alongside Church Lane were also still full, though slightly less photogenic.

CHURCH LANE

Looking over towards Fiskerton this month it’s clear to see that the Trent has not yet returned to its previous course, and the water is even more inland than it was in January. I’m sure many people will be wondering when and if, it will.

LOOKING OVER TOWARDS FISKERTON

Thanks for joining me this month, I’ll be sharing the next instalment around the third week of the month, but in the meantime if you enjoyed this post you may also like some previous series where I revisit the same place - there’s my year in Greenwich Park and remember that time when I followed a tree?