Time to start blogging again.

I keep telling myself I should carry on with my blog and just noticed today the my last post was in February 2015, more than a year ago.

I think it is now time to make a start with a new season almost here.  Apparently we now have two different dates for the start of Spring.  The first one is 1st March which is the Meteorological Spring and the 2nd is the Vernal Equinox which this year is tomorrow 20th March.  This is called the Astronomical Spring.  I have always thought of the equinox as the start of Spring so that is the one I will stick to.

For my 1st post of the year I think it appropriate to talk about my garden. I first ventured out to do a bit of tidying with my grandson Stuart last weekend.  It has been so wet until the last couple of weeks that the whole garden was waterlogged. Fortunately the March winds have started to dry it out so we picked up dead twigs from the lawn ready for its first cut, which was done by the gardener on Thursday. He was happy not to have to go round picking up the twigs beforehand.  I have 3 large oak trees and they shed twigs like a cat sheds fur.  Stuart also pruned my buddleia bush which is very old and rather large. He sawed it back drastically, which it really needed.  I think it might be time to dig it out and buy a new one but we'll see how it goes.

Today I have been working on my herb garden. The thyme plants and some of the lavender had died since last year so I dug them out and also cut back the other plants as well as weeding. This is a photo from earlier in the month.

 I bought 3 new thyme plants earlier in the week and replaced the 4 dead ones with 3 new ones.  They do spread quite a lot as they grow and I think I had planted the previous ones too close to each other.  I think it is looking much better now.  I have also brought out my hedgehog and fairy house which have been overwintering in the greenhouse.

I have been getting very anxious over the last couple of weeks because there was not much activity in my pond.  I have only seen 2 frogs in there and a newt.  There are often as many as 20 frogs in there during the spawning season which can start as early as mid February.  Today I am pleased to report that at last I have frogspawn. Only one batch but it is a start.  With having a relatively mild winter and the Spring flowers starting early I thought the frogs would have been early too.

I usually hope that we will have daffodils for 1st March, St David's Day, and we usually do. This year the first ones opened on 28th January, more than a month earlier.