On Good Friday last year...........

.........we were enjoying what turned out to be our short summer!  Hosepipe bans had just announced, potatoes planted and seeds sown. The soil was warm and dry beneath a hot sun and we were being warned about a summer of drought.  Garden centres had sold out of water butts as we were being told in dire tones to conserve water as reservoirs were dangerously low!

Hand dried bricks beneath the blue pavers!

This year on Good Friday, I was sitting outside with an old hair dryer plugged in to extension cable defrosting snow covered bricks and then drying them out to enable building works in the form of Staffordshire blue pavers to be laid as capping bricks around the tops of the retaining walls surrounding the contorted hazel and 'chimney conifer.'  The weather has been consistently cold with daytime temperatures barely above freezing and night time temperatures well below freezing with -8 promised tonight!  Finishing off the brickwork between the gravel and the flagstones was today's main mission with keeping warm the big challenge!  The line of blue retaining bricks holding back the gravel were laid in graceful curves and then tucked up in layers of weighted down newspapers to keep the frosts at bay while the cement dries.  I was glad to use a sledge hammer to break up old bricks for use as rubble and to try (in vain) to keep warm.

Al came back from Costco with a hybrid Magnolia Wada's Memory from Seattle.  It's a lovely specimen covered in white scented flowers.  There is absolutely no hope of planting it in the garden with this very cold spell likely to remain until well into April according to the Met Office.  It's actually sitting in the conservatory until things look up.

Any Pond in a Storm

Mrs & Mrs D

Mr & Mrs Duck have returned again this spring (?) and have been enjoying stirring up the pond water and paddling in the snow!  If they decide to lay again, I'm hoping it's well away from both rats  and foxes.

Mrs D

Wallace II

For the past few very snowy days, we've had a visitor in the garden.  He's been seen foraging in the borders and he's certainly been heard trying to attract a mate.  Let's hope Monsieur Le Reynard doesn't hear his calls!!  

Grovelling in the Gravel

Chris avec new blower!

We didn't expect to have to blow the snow off the drive in order to spread the gravel - not on 23 March!  Hey Ho!

Sarah and Matt working hard

Global Warming Gripe!

............and while we're discussing the vicissitudes of the English weather: where exactly all those learned people who, not so long ago, earnestly extolled the virtues of drought resistant and drought tolerant plants?  The same people who advised us humble gardeners that we should be growing arrid Mediterranean loving plants??  The people who told us that, due to high levels of global warming, we would no longer need to worry about 'having' to grow hardy plants and shrubs. The very people who straight faced advised that the British climate was becoming hotter.  Not so very long ago, every T.V. gardening programme, periodical and magazine article lectured us all and actively promoted this style of gardening - in fact they positively preached until we were tired of hearing the same old drivel. I just have a couple of questions.

Did they heed their own advice?  If so...

                                  ..how exactly did their gardens grow???  

This link is definitely worth a second glance!    UK Plant Hardiness Map

Drive Work in Arctic Conditions

Chris at the helm

Mountains on the drive

Why did the weather have to take so many turns for the worse as soon as the digger arrived?  It was already far too cold.  The only reason snow can't be seen in these photos is because it has been all dug up!  Not that Chris or Nick were deterred by such meteorological downturns.  They set about scraping off several layers of old compacted gravel and mud, loading up Clarence and taking it up to Chris's wood.  The idea is to level the width of the drive for the first time and reduce the surface height so that the finished level of the 6 tons of new gravel (due to arrive tomorrow!) will lie at the original height and look smart and tidy.  Well that's the theory!

Hard at work

VERNAL EQUINOX

Frost on the Magnolia

Frost on the summerhouse roof

21st March and the first day of spring and what do we have?  A dusting of snow and freezing temperatures!!