Seasons

The Changing Seasons: April Days

April has been wind-wind-windy, with more days of lowering cloud than sun. Also, at times, it’s been piercingly cold, so definitely no casting of winter layers.

I’ve already said here how an early April gale felled the cherry plum tree that grew just over the hedge by our kitchen window. It wasn’t our tree, but part of our ‘borrowed landscape’ and somehow gave us a sense of woodedness with its gracious rustling canopy. It was a shock to find it lying across our kitchen roof.

But now it is gone, we have more light and, come supper-time, even a sunset glow atop the holly hedge. And so, as is the way with gardening, something lost is the chance for some new growing. Still to be decided.

But talking of the holly hedge (which is absolutely not my favourite part of the garden), these last two weeks it’s been alive with tiny blue butterflies. An entomologist chum told me they are Holly Blues, and not the Common Blues I’d taken them for. They travel at speed, flit and flutter, looking like flecks of fallen sky. Not easy to snap then. All of which is to say, I’m feeling more kindly towards the hedge if its the reason for the tiny blue butterfly show.

The cold and windy weather hasn’t stopped spring happening. In fact all the winter rain is paying off around the town – the countryside fat with lush pasture and burgeoning wheat fields; hedgerows alight with blackthorn blossom, hawthorn, hazel, bright white stars of stitchwort, bluebells, dandelions. The big trees, too, are starting to green (the oaks and ashes are ever late on parade). And of course it is also the season of bright yellow spreads of oil seed rape, plus the inevitable flocks of tiny flea beetles that go with it, and then come to my garden later to devour my rocket plants or anything else related to a cabbage.

Last week, on a bright, but still windy day, we walked up Wintles Hill behind the town to see the views and visit the elephant sculpture. The green lane ascent lived up to its name, but with masses of white stitchwort too.

On the brow of the hill, the old barns, as usual, demanded to have their picture taken:

On Wintles hilltop, which is always a high spot and in all senses, the wheat was just emerging, but not so vigorously as in the more sheltered, well watered valley fields. We stopped to look beyond our local hills, over the border into Wales:

Meanwhile, back in the home garden, it is apple blossom time. The miniature eating apple trees and the three crab apples have been flowering well. Even the big old tree at the bottom of the garden is now looking lovely after a good winter prune:

Closer to the house, the Red Devil miniature tree is looking anything but devilish. This is its first year flowering in our garden. In time, it’s supposed to produce bright red apples, which rather puts one in mind of Wicked Queens and Snow White:

As for the rest of the garden, the daffodils and narcissi are over, the tulips on the wane, but the early summer plants are surging up: foxgloves, aquilegias, and valerian all about to flower; Welsh poppies, and Centaurea cornflowers already opening.

Today, on the last day of April, we have a cloudless blue sky and brilliant sunshine. And it’s still blowing a gale, but at least it’s a warmish one. There are times, too, when it drops, it almost feels like summer, but only for a moment.

The Changing Seasons: April 2026 Brian at bushboys world and Ju-Lyn at Touring My Backyard are our hosts. Please pop and see what they’ve been up to this month. For one thing, Brian has a stunning gallery of birds and wallabies, and as ever, Ju-Lyn has been cooking up a storm in her kitchen – so many mouth-watering creations.

The Changing Seasons: This Was March 2026

It’s been a tricksy month weatherwise. The leafing trees and blooming bulbs have been saying spring. Likewise the few days of blue sky and warmth that lured us, wantonly, to cast off clouts and dream of summer days. But then next, to put us right, came winds, icy, perishing blasts under leaden skies, and it was back to triple woollies.

Towards the end of the month came another false spring. As we drove out of Shropshire and down to Warwickshire its arrival seemed so certain. More blue skies. Banks of daffodils and primroses on every roadside. The blackthorn and wild cherry blossom running riot in dazzling white arcades; hawthorn hedges bursting in greens too green to imagine.

We were off for a few days beside the river at Bidford-on-Avon, on the fringes of ‘Shakespeare Country’. (It’s said that Will took part in a riotous drinking contest at the Falcon Inn in Bidford). It is also known for its ancient bridge, built in the fifteenth century, downstream of an an even more ancient Roman ford on the Icknield Way.

We arrived on a perfect afternoon. And so the spell held – for another day.

Our spot on the river with narrow boats moored alongside

And then it was back to grey skies and sharp winds. But we still enjoyed a ramble round the mostly slumbering ‘garden rooms’ at Hidcote Manor, the must-see creation for passionate gardeners and plant lovers, and one of the Cotswolds’ biggest visitor attractions. But as you can see, signs of spring, apart from the magnolias, were few and far between. This is definitely a summer garden:

There was an amusing sighting though. I stopped to take a photo of the couple at the gates, and then realised they were watching a little robot lawnmower trundling back and forth between the hedges. It seemed to have its work cut out:

We also came upon a novel way to display (actually get to see) hellebore flowers, which do so hide their faces when growing out in the garden – a shallow dish filled with water:

It’s actually been a fine season for hellebores – even if it is hard to see the flowers. These were spotted at Hillers’ garden centre near Bidford.

On our final evening we walked along the riverbank accompanied now and then by swans. I think they were hoping for a hand-out:

Now home again, the little tulips in the front garden make a bright show. At least they do when the sun comes out. At the moment as I write this they are closed up tight under gloomy cloud. Also waiting for spring…

The Changing Seasons: March 2026 This month Brian from Bushboys World is the host. Please go and see his marvellous gallery of March sightings.

November On And Over The Edge: The Changing Seasons

For most of November it’s been rain and gloom on the weather front, and hate and smear in the mass media. When it comes to the upcoming general election it feels like a no-win situation. We’re dying for it to be done with, but horrified by the possible result. I further give my position away when I say the only bright spot this last week was when Channel 4 ‘emptied chaired’ Boris Johnson who refused to take part in the leaders’ climate crisis debate and replaced him, as they said they would do, with an ice sculpture. This served to generate the Twitter hashtag #BorisIsAMelt which in turn made me laugh out loud, and briefly lifted the spirits.

And then on Friday the sun came out so we popped over to nearby Ironbridge and turned it into a proper outing, mooching and lunching. And then yesterday, though Wenlock was again lost in murk, when we drove out of town into Corvedale there was the sun floodlighting the valley through a thin gauze of mist. Goodness! Sun – two days running. So we went to the off-season opening at Wildegoose Nursery where we had last been in August when the walled garden was alive with butterflies and all round floral brilliance. Yesterday it was transformed to muted tones, here and there lit up by plumes of ornamental grasses as they caught the sun. The place is pure magic however it comes, and especially its magnificent glasshouse. Yesterday it was hosting a special course of Christmas wreath making plus some arty works from our much loved 2020 Gallery (even though it’s moved from Wenlock to Ludlow).

And so making the most of November’s sunny intervals, the following photos are mostly from the last couple of days: first off, yesterday at Wildegoose Nursery:

Ironbridge 29th November:

And on home territory earlier in the month: fog over the garden fence and brighter vistas in and around the Linden Walk and Wenlock Priory parkland…

The Changing Seasons: November 2019

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The Changing Seasons ~ October In And Out Of The garden

It’s been Michaelmas madness over in the guerrilla garden. November today and these stalwart daisies are still going strong, the late flowering white ones being especially vigorous. I rather hated them when they were inside the garden. They wanted to take over, and when they weren’t doing that, they flopped everywhere. But now set free along the field boundary, they have come into their own: pale drifts that seem faintly luminous in the autumn light.

There have been all sorts of other unlikely hangers on. Cosmos for one. And then a couple of weeks ago the shrubby convolvulus sprouted a host of buds, and now they’re popping open, each day several new silvery white flowers with pale pink stripes. They’ve not been put off by days of downpours, gusty winds or early morning frost. The perennial sunflower Helianthus Silver Queen, with her tall sprays of lemony flowers, has been putting on a show too. She seems to think October is her month to bloom.

Out around the town the lime trees are turning to gold and beginning to shed their leaves. England tends not to go in for spectacular vistas of autumn colour – more a case of subtle fading through many shades of rust and amber. But this year the Coxes apple tree in the garden made some very red apples – good enough for wicked queens to entrap the likes of Snow White. They weren’t many though and now they’ve mostly been eaten in a Tarte Tatin.