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Despite being driven indoors four times by squally hail showers, I got a few worthwhile jobs done. I've dug out the border by the pond, lined it with compost bags and backfilled with heavier soil and manure. This is mainly for the new primulas which I've
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Still less than 10C out in a brisk cold wind. These pictures give the impression of a bright spring day, but it's not. Does anyone recognise the Camellia, by the way? It was in the garden when we moved in and I don't know what it
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The weather's fresher and so am I - a fresher as a volunteer at Dunham Massey. It was good to get out and do some hands-on gardening instead of walking round and looking. We pruned hydrangeas, mulched an astilbe bed and raked up after the lawn scarifier. We
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My carefully worked out plans to spend today (Sunday) creating the gravel garden and getting rid of the last of the fence have been scuppered by a rapid sequence of cold, squally showers. I've sown a few salad seeds in the polytunnel and tidied up in there a
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A few mild days have brought everything to life. Prunus 'Pissardii' has finally sprung prettily into flower. All the Tete-a-tete are open and the surface of the herbaceous perennial border is breaking open as dormant buds burst through. The one meconopsis that I disbudded last year
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Another low of -3C last night froze the top of the frogspawn heap. But when it finally warmed up a bit we had the loveliest spring day so far - just warm enough to persuade the crocuses to release their faint scent on the still air. Another cold night tonight, then
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I was awake at 5.30am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up, threw on a fleece and went out in the chill morning air. About a dozen frogs were piled up on a messy heap of frogspawn in the pond so clearly the heron
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Two dry days meant two good sessions outdoors. Still very cool, but the sun came out long enough to encourage a few flowers to open. Below is Tete-a-tete making its first foray into the open. I dug over all the veg plots and raked in compost or manure.
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On the 17th March 2005, we recorded a high of 18C. Today, exactly one year later we recorded a high of 3.4C. A frost is predicted for the next 5 nights with maximum temperatures of 5C. For those of us who said a cold winter would be good for
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Despite the heron, snow and sub-zero temperatures, we have the first clump of fresh frogspawn in the pond. In fact, it's only about 3 days later than last year, so perhaps each pond-full of frogs has its own spawning time, regardless of the weather. Sleet and
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Today we've had alternate hail and sleet, in a whipping cold wind that made it seem even colder than the 4C which the thermometer struggled to reach. And there's no sign of frog spawn either, so maybe the heron got the lot. Just one spring day
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We woke to a snow covered garden once more. I can tell it has snowed before I open my eyes, as the snow muffles the sound of passing cars to a low hum. Lovely though the peace is, it is bitter out, close to zero with a biting east wind.