Yesterday I saw two things that were sure signs signs that Spring is coming; one little Iris opening in the warm sunshine at the front of our house and sunlight shining at the bottom of my dark and gloomy North-facing garden.
These two simple occurrences made my day.
Knowing that that one little flower who had dared peep out of its leafy sanctuary to brave the mid February air would be the first of many to appear from the clusters of green spears that have been slowly raising up out of the earth since winter began. Tulips and daffodils and papavers and tiny narcissus and hyacinths and grape hyacinths and whatever else it is that I've planted and completely forgotten about since they all faded away after the summer.
My own little rainbow, my little patch of lovely.
It also reminded me that I've got work to do. A lot of work. Because with the plants that we want we also get the ones we don't. The weeds. And this year I'm determined to get those pesky thistles and those other tiny ones, the ones with round leaves that seem to appear overnight and multiply over the next.
Our back garden is only small, its about 15 feet wide and about maybe 30-35 long. It's difficult to tell as it's now dark and a bit of an odd shape at the bottom. But that major thing with our garden is the position, the dreaded North facing. Compounded by three things. One, we have a garage along one side which goes from our house to about the halfway mark. Two, our house is next door to the corner of our street and the next street along so we have three semi's that wrap around our garden down one side (hence the odd shape at the bottom of the garden). And three, we're also semi-detached. So basically from around October its a no-light zone. And given that our soil is heavy, heavy clay it's also a no-entry zone.
In the bottom right corner we have a couple of old garden chairs which catch the last glimpses of sunlight on Summer evenings and bake in the heat during a good Summer's day.
This corner also catches the first rays of light from the low spring sun on those gloriously cold, crisp, sunny spring days.
And yesterday I saw it, my little bare (slightly muddy) corner that in a dozen or so weeks will be blooming once more, was shining brightly, warmly. Waiting to be tidied up and weeded and planted and used and enjoyed. With books and tea and children's laughter and holding hands and wine and star gazing and BBQ's and cake and sunshine and flowers and everything else.
I can't wait.
I made a treasury on etsy with all of my favourite Spring type things to look forward to. Take a look, please like it and share it and favourite whichever one defines spring for you :)
