March Garden Notes
From my notebook on nature and the garden - March 2024 (plus a list of the flower varieties I'm sowing this month)
There are moments in March when true spring seems almost within reach. The mild afternoons when the wind dies down and the sun shuffles out, shyly, from behind the clouds and brings that honeyed scent of flowers to the air. And then winter returns again, throwing its full force behind rainstorms that batter the blossom from the trees and make the daffodils sink to their knees. Hour-to-hour the weather changes, blowing in across the fields, sometimes from the west, often from the icy north.
I snatch at the sunshine, making the most of the warmer, drier days to be in the garden, relishing that damp green smell of the earth warming up, the shoots pushing through. That feeling of sun on my back and my hands in the soil that I have missed so much. Each day lengthening little-by-little, extending my time outside, giving me more light to work by, until hungry children question what’s happening about tea?
Every other day the hedgerows are changing, new plants coming into leaf, white puffs of blackthorn blossom, the green burr of leaves budding on the hornbeams and hawthorns, the dog roses coming into leaf. They glow with life between bare fields; the wet winter meaning the farmers are yet to plant many crops, their tractors sinking into the mud as soon as their huge tyres touch the fields. No time to sow wheat now, they are hoping to get a crop of maize in soon, waiting for a long enough dry spell between all the storms.
Cowslips, deadnettle, herb Robert and stitchwort are weaving themselves through the verges and ditches along the roads that twist into the village. One early morning, on the drive to our tiny train station, Rufus and I watch two hares chasing one another through the fields, leaping the ditches, running across the road, all powerful legs and bright eyes. I wish we could watch for longer, but there is a train to catch. Happily, they are still there on my way back, running each other in circles, flirting and chasing through the fields with the sun rising through the mist behind them. I drive as slowly as I can, watching their lover’s dance for as long as I dare.
The birds are flirting too, whipping in and out of the hedges, darting amongst the trees, peering at me from the high perches up in the branches, showing off and singing their best songs. I love the energy of it. I love waking up at first light to their chorus filtering through the windows and into my mind, telling me it’s time to get up and get on, that the new day is already here and waiting.
The daffodils have reigned for much of the month, their bright yellow cheering us through the greyer days. The traditional trumpets are giving way now to the posher, frillier sorts, the paler petals of obdam, ice follies and bridal crown, with their spicy, heady scents. The front border is full of creamy white daffodils, with blue bunches of muscari popping up in between.