A Garden Spring

Some observances on the nature and nurture of the season

If you’ve missed me, did you try the garden? I’m probably out there….

Aah, Spring! Although I will never relinquish my first love; the foggy russet of October, I could be persuaded that heaven can be glimpsed in the shape of an April morning. Weekend mornings are my favourite, the sunny ones particularly – and we have had plenty of those recently. Here in our corner of Sussex, just one night of rain has fallen so far this month, with March also proving to be the driest of its kind on record. Just an approximate 8ml of rain last month, little more than a thimbleful. Still, mustn’t grumble. We gardeners are never satisfied with the weather. And I must say, the bright days have been glorious.

Since the clocks changed a few weeks ago, we are now officially in ‘British Summer Time’, which basically means that there is now a rule that anything and everything that can be done outdoors, must be done outdoors. The sky is blue, buds are bursting, bees are buzzing, swallows have returned and (as long as you leave your phone indoors, switch off the tv, and use your newspapers for lining hanging baskets instead of reading…) all is well with the world.

I am sitting at the garden table where, yesterday, I potted up sunflowers and pricked out scabious seedlings. The borders have been taken over by a blue bubble-bath of forget-me-not, reminding me that I’ll need to thin out their masses as soon at they show signs of going to seed. The small decorative crab apple that was one of the first things I planted in this garden in the autumn of 2023, is smothered in raspberry-pink blossom to tip to toe; a bold contrast with the irrepressible forget-me-nots and busy with small worker bumblebees. But it is the green that I’m appreciating most right now. The hillside woods beyond the garden are finally greener than they are brown, with the emergence of the soft beech leaves. Closer-too the hornbeam is festooned with green bracts of blossom, a shade paler than the vibrant hazel and sycamore foliage. Even the sunny windows of the potting shed are green, as Saturday afternoon purchases of nursery grown tomato, squash, cucumber, courgette, and basil seedlings crowd the shelves making the most of this warm spring. The coldframe too is full of plants, some home-grown from seeds, others acclimatising from garden centre greenhouse to garden conditions.

I have been sowing seeds this morning; some more peas, the first french beans, the last sweet peas.

This is spring, and as usual, with the approach of the May Day bank holiday weekend, it feels like we are running out of time as the year speeds up and cartwheels towards summer. We are not of course; my gardening guru Great-Grandad Sid would never have planted his bedding plants out until mid or even end of May, and June is the first month that its really reliably warm enough for long lazy picnics… but as the supermarkets and high-streets fill up with swimwear and sunscreen, and tv adverts and social media posts pile on the impetuous to buy that latest seasons must haves, and make plans for every bright moment… it can really feel like the pressure is on.

I have a strange, and strained, relationship with spring and summer. It can sometimes feel a little lonely to admit I don’t love it (despite finding so much joy in April mornings), when all of society seems geared around a belief that autumn and winter are to be ‘got through’ with summer being the high goal, the peak of all blessed days to be worshipped and overhyped. Spring is beautiful and full of wonder, but don’t you think it can also be exhausting? All that waiting and longing and rushing from one new emergence to the next, new colour and budding and growth...spring is just… so much. Sometimes, I can almost be grateful for a spell of ‘bad weather’. I quietly revel in a soft, muted day, when skies are overcast, a light drizzle falls, and everyone else is bemoaning the loss of the sun. I breathe a little lighter, when the air is cool and wet. As May matures into summer, I delight in the bounty of the garden and the countryside that surrounds my home; flowers and fruit and a flush of new life in every hedge and woodland glade. I feel my heart thud out of my ribs with the thrill of the first screaming parties of swifts and barely want the long hazy days to end. Summer however also can get demanding; the aching worry of watching roadside trees and field crops grow pale and dusty with long spells of drought, the constant effort of watering the garden, fending off ticks and horseflies, the societal driven pressure to make the most of every moment, visit every attraction, do every activity, that pulls me guiltily from the deckchair where I should simply be sitting watching the tomatoes ripen.

I come alive again in late August, when the first whiff of a freshly sharpened pencil, and testing the honey-sweet apples for ripeness, leads us into September.

Yesterday, I bought some pots of herbs from the supermarket – basil and coriander. Have you noticed how these often seem to barely last a week or two on the kitchen windowsill? This is because rather than being mature plants, they are pots crammed with competing seedlings. Take the clump out of the pot, gently pull it apart and separate small clusters of plants and repot them, producing many more plants from your £1.50! Snip off the tips, use these in your next salad, and water the plants well, keeping them somewhere warm and sunny, they will soon recover, shooting away with a flush of new leaves to crop. This is exactly what I should be getting on with this afternoon. And stewing the rhubarb that’s waiting in the fridge with a little apple and sugar to go with greek yogurt for this week’s breakfast. For the moment though, I think I will stay sitting here, with my glass of ginger ale and the last of the chocolate buttons from my Easter egg, and simply watch the orange tip butterflies patrol, and the blue tits dash from nest box to pear tree and back, and count the shades of green. After all, we’re not running out of time yet.