Spring....it's here

April Showers….

There is a saying that goes ‘April showers brings May flowers. Given that, here in Devon it is now nearing the end of the first week of April and we have had just two days of sunshine and the rest being days of rain showers, I think we can expect an extremely floriferous May.

We’ve been lucky to have a splendid show from the early spring flowers throughout March – snowdrops, cyclamen, crocus and daffodils and now the tulips are starting to reveal their jewel colours.

I’m lucky enough to work not just as a designer but as a gardener too, and at this time of year I love to see the garden and nature prepare and reveal fresh leaves and blossom. Where will the next green shoot arise, the next leaf unfurl or the next bloom open? I would encourage you to take a walk – in a garden, along your street or down a country lane and just notice what is happening to the trees – right now the leaves of the Hazel in their diminutive form are unfurling, there are cream dots adorning the Blackthorn ready to explode into a galaxy of flowers that will smother the branches and in the garden, shrubs such as Viburnum plicatum hold aloft heads of little green baubles ready to burst into a clutch of frothy flowers. A walk and a note taken today will be a very different observation next week. It all happens so fast.

As the ground also begins to warm, so it is a time to consider sowing seeds. Indeed, there are few greater harvests than one’s own cut flowers providing bunches of joy for yourself and for you to hand out to friends and family.

Hardy annuals are particularly dependable and should be the core of your patch. They are the simplest of the cut flowers to grow as they can be sown direct where you wish them to grow. But be sure that the soil has warmed enough. If you think the temperatures remain a little too low as is certainly the case at the moment, you can create a warm microclimate by covering your newly sown seeds with cloches or a fleece tunnel. This will give the seedlings a gentler and more sure start.

In the plethora of seeds to grow may I suggest a few more reliable blooms such as Calendula, Larkspur, Ammi Majus, Cerinthe, Cornflowers and Nigella.

If you have the space in a greenhouse or a windowsill, then you may consider starting other cut flowers that need to be sown indoors first – Nicotiana, China Aster, Strawflowers and Zinnia are my suggestion. Once these seedlings have their first true leaves and the risk of frost is past, carefully transfer them to where they will grow.

When the sun is shining, drying the washing at last, it is glorious and lifts one’s spirits. Is there anything better than a spring walk, the sun on your face, the robins frenetically singing, the bees bobbing from dandelion to blossom? But the evenings remain cool and so our wildlife very much continues to need our consideration.

The bees have visibly begun emerging from their winter hibernation. In the cool of the night whilst the honeybees may go back to their hives and the warming protection of the wax and their vast numbers, other bees that make some of the 270 species of bee in the UK do not live in obvious colonies. There are some 30 species of Bumble bee which do live in colonies, but the remainder of our bee species are solitary bees.

Now is the time the pregnant queen bumble bee will be emerging from hibernation. The first thing she needs to do is find a nest for her eggs and keep warm at night. You may see a queen exploring the ground looking for suitable crevice or hole, among the grass, in a tree or in the compost heap. Once she has found her nest, she will lay her eggs and establish a colony. If you happen to find a queen bee, try not to disturb her as she will only be there for a season.

Solitary bees have a tremendously wide variety of places they like to call home. For example, Mason bees, the Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowens of the bee world, love to adapt small spaces such as an abandoned snail shell that they line with mud. Mining bees will head underground and leaf-cutter bees line holes with leaves whilst others will live in walls or rock faces, in plant stalks or flowers.

These solitary bees have an annual life cycle, and they use the spring and summer to make their homes and then lay their eggs in Autumn. They will fill their homes with bee butter and nectar and then as the temperature drops, these adults succumb to the cold. But come spring, the cycle begins again as the young bees eat their way through these stores and emerge from their homes into the sunlight. It is worth remembering then to allow a degree of unkemptness in your garden to provide bee habitats – allow a patch of longer grass to remain, not to cut all plant stalks down but rather allow some to stand through the winter and don’t to be too quick to cut them back in Spring, not before the bees have emerged from their hibernation.

I wish you a wonderful Easter and hope it is a time spent not just enjoying the company of others but the joys of Spring too.

Your friend,

Sam