John Clare

Or is it?

February in Britain often teases, bringing us a sudden mild and sunny day, as it did last Saturday, followed by bone biting winds (today). Countryman poet, John Clare 1793-1864, wrote a poem about February fickleness. I probably mentioned this time last year. It’s worth a read.

So: we have crocus and snowdrops, and the odd daffodil. Also hellebores, both waning and waxing. On the garden steps the winter pansies still thrive, although all but blustered out of their pot.

We have only a small scatter of snowdrops in the Farrell domain, but everywhere else about the town, in gardens, under lane-side walls and hedges there are drifts and drifts. Reinforcements, then, needed at The Gables for next year.

At the top of the garden steps the dark hellebore has just begun to flower. Very striking when the sun catches it. Meanwhile, in the pot below, Hellebore Christmas Carol is winding down after a three month performance. Although having said that, this morning I noticed there are new buds forming beneath the gone-to-seed blooms.

The clump of tiny crocus at the top of this post popped up this week by the front gate. Most welcoming of them. This particular variety also seems to be growing in every Bishop’s Castle garden. And of course there are the chunkier sorts too, a whole host in fact spotted in the grounds of the Wintles eco-houses:

Outside the kitchen window (on the far side of our horrid hedge) the ornamental cherry tree is now displaying the faintest haze of plum coloured buds. They will be candy floss pink when they open. Not a favourite colour, but still a sight to look forward to against a blue spring sky.

And talking of the horrid hedge, those of you who follow my gardening pursuits will know that last year I was doing battle with it: untangling swathes of ivy, pulling out decayed hawthorn branches, unpicking very prickly vegetation that had knitted itself into a chicken wire fence running the length of the back garden, whingeing about the forest of saplings – ash, sycamore and elder that had grown amongst the holly, privet, weigela and hawthorn, all of which meaning you pretty much need a chainsaw to keep it in check.

In an ideal world I would have it dug out and replanted with wildlife-human friendly species. In fact, looking at 1990s photos of it, I don’t think it was ever deliberately planted as a hedge: more a case of boundary holly trees and shrubs suckering up together with arboreal interlopers and encasing a very rotten field fence.

But then a few weeks ago I had a notion. I discovered I could buy individual wild hedging plants and so fill in gaps between existing thickets. We have now popped in bird cherry, field maple and briar rose whips. We also have a more substantial hornbeam still to plant on the sunny side of the biggest gap created by our recent building work.

My hope is that, as the new plants become established (well trained of course), we can then cut back the main stems of the ash, sycamore and overgrown weigela, encouraging them to sprout more usefully (and manageably) from the base. That’s the plan anyway. One for the long term, methinks.

And apart from this, and in rare dry spells, my other betwixt-winter-spring gardening pursuit has involved digging out the compost bin. Last year I’d filled it with dug up lawn. And oh, what lovely stuff it’s become. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me – a lovely big pile of crumbly dirt. Perhaps enough for two raised beds.

Time to start some seed sowing then…

Sun in the hellebores, and a forget-me-not sky. Not a cloud in sight, only a passing aircraft unzipping the blue. And, for heaven’s sake, it was warm enough to sit outside for morning coffee; nor did we need coats when we walked into town at lunch time. Along the verges the celandines were as wide as wide; birds twittering; butterflies flitting. In the Cutlins field we found there had been a multiplication of highland cattle: parents and calf have joined the three teens. They were all quietly grazing and munching out in the sun. At the foot of the path by the priory ruins the air was drenched with mahonia scent, and around the town there was a dreamy sense of the world just waking up, tree buds swelling and crocus out on parade.

But then as the countryman poet John Clare warns, February can be a treacherous month. Out of the blue comes blissful weather and everyone is out and about and thinking of summer. And then…and then…

Here’s an extract from the poem, for though rather florid for my taste it captures the day so perfectly, and tonight there may indeed be frost:

The sunbeams on the hedges lie,
The south wind murmurs summer-soft;
The maids hang out white clothes to dry
Around the elder-skirted croft:
A calm of pleasure listens round,
And almost whispers winter by;
While Fancy dreams of summer’s sound,
And quiet rapture fills the eye.

Thus Nature of the spring will dream
While south winds thaw; but soon again
Frost breathes upon the stiffening stream,
And numbs it into ice: the plain
Soon wears its mourning garb of white;
And icicles, that fret at noon,
Will eke their icy tails at night
Beneath the chilly stars and moon.

Excerpt of February from The Shepherd’s Calendar by John Clare (1793-1864)

So as I said to Graham as we drowsed happily on the garden bench, staring at the cloudless sky, coffee mugs in hand: better soak up the bliss while we can then. Carpe diem, says Graham.

And I suppose now I’ve mentioned the Highland calf I’d better show him to you, not at all close up, but the sun on his nose and hints of green in the willow behind: