Without doubt, it is spring on our terrace in the heart of London. And while I know that a city like this can easily get 3-5 degrees warmer than its surroundings, note I'm not announcing spring just as the first flower buds were spotted, but when everything is in bloom. This is one of two daffodils that hurried to open this morning, as the sun shone bright and the temperature steadily rose to the 15 degrees I experienced just before noon.
Swinging the terrace door open and being able to leave it as such was, of course, an added benefit, and for the whole five minutes I basked in the sun between moving work from home to the office, I snapped away happily at all the splendour. The crocuses, in particular, as they are nearly gone, and quite hidden under the rosemary that finally manned up last year, once I gave it a new pot in 2010 and kept it away from the cleaner than nearly watered it to death in 2009.
I expect that as it grows and bushes up, the woody branches at the bottom will lose their foliage, and my crocuses will shine in the sun in all their purple glory as of next year. And speaking of sun, I loved catching an early glimpse of this gazania, as it has so much more colour than
the blanched flowers of summer. It didn't die over the winter, which is why there's such an early bloom, both facts recommending it as a year-round flowering plant in London.
The hyacinths, however, only coming round once a year, are quite happily hidden away from the sun among some greenery. That makes it a tad hard to spot them before they're fully open, but then again, I'd rather they last longer. Even if it means I have to bend a little for a photo and a sniff. This is not the only hyacinth (
two more are go), and not the first either—as the snow flattened the gazania pile, the hyacinth behind it had quite a bit of sun quite quickly, and recently passed away.
Our silver wattle, meanwhile, or mimosa for others (
acacia dealbata, to be clear) is approaching its climax. The flowers are already too high for me to smell without a ladder, but guess what I'll be doing this weekend? Oh, yeah! We bought this tree in the late winter of 2010, in a deplorable state. It has grown incredibly fast, the bush creature it is, and I feel incredibly successful to have it bloom already, and proudly receive compliments from the neighbours who're used to seeing it in the South of France.
There's a lot more going on in the garden, and I'll be trying harder to report on it. Last year I photographed every bit of interestingness dutifully, but failed to tell the stories timely. There was a lot of actual gardening involved, for at least a full day every weekend, and I hope that it all pays off in the years to come, when hopefully it's a lot more about maintenance and sitting back to enjoy the lush green paradise that is manmade miracle in the city centre.
Labels: green babies