Tag: spring

April 25th – One of the sadnesses of the season is how short lived the blossom is – it’s there, and gone in a blaze of colour, then shed petals and confetti, then… nothing. A more transient example of the season’s wheel you could not find.

At the moment, the blossom is just starting to end, but passing these two intertwined trees on the cycleway to Priorslee in Telford always fascinates me as it looks like one tree with two different colours of blossom.

I love how, even when fresh, the pink one looks like bright but tattered tissue paper.

Such a lovely, but all to quickly passing, time of year…

April 21st – Another wonderful spring flower coming into bloom is the oilseed rape in the fields. All across the rural landscape this vivid yellow brassica is turning the landscape yellow.

The smell is wonderful and it’s just started. The fields are alive with bee buzz and birds come for the feasting bugs. 

I love the drama and beauty of this curious crop

April 21st – I don’t think I’ve ever known a spring like this – someone has fired a starting gun, and on this generally sunny afternoon ride to Burton so many flowers were either out or coming out that it was astounding.

I have never seen hawthorn in flower at the same time as blackthorn. The wild garlic is out when there are still daffodils. Bluebells are about too. It’s absolutely gorgeous out there.

A long, sunny afternoon ride, stopping to inspect the flowers was just what I needed.

How I love this time of year.

April 20th – And so, spring is on her throne at last and summer is booting up.

The speed at which this has happened this year – in no more that a week – has been startling and rather wonderful.

Every day new discoveries, and whilst yesterday, the blossom was just starting, this morning it was showing strongly.

How long I have waited for the light, the warmth and the wonderful burst of life. It was worth the wait.

April 18th – There are lots of floral arrivals at the moment but it would be wrong to concentrate on the dramatic, showy ones. One return in the last week or so and enjoying the morning sunshine today from every patch of grass and roadside were a huge number of one of nature’s most overlooked gems – dandelions. 

These humble yellow flowers are actually really lovely if you stop and look at them for a bit – which today, I advise anyone to do. They’re really gorgeous.

Sometimes, it’s the little, familiar things that are most beautiful.

April 18th – Last week I found the lovely pieris flowers I didn’t recognise in Wednesbury, even though as readers Susan Marie Ward, Linda Mason and others pointed out, I’d posted them here before.

The reason I hadn’t recognised them was because I’m used to seeing them with the beautiful bright red foliage they normally develop in early spring, but this year seems very late, and last week there was no hint of it.

Well, now it’s arrived and the result is truly stunning. Pieris – sometimes called fetterbush, rather delightfully – is grown a lot in gardens and in beds on industrial estates and parks.

Little things like this make spring such a wonderful time, I’m so glad it’s finally here.

April 17th – Every day, new flowers and leaves. This is fantastic, and just what I’ve been waiting for. All I need now is the sun to do it’s thing…

Spotted in a roadside verge near Lower Stonnall on Gravelly Lane – one of my all time favourite spring flowers – muscari or grape hyacinth. A garden favourite, I’m not sure if they’re native here or a garden escapee. But they are so very gorgeous, tiny blue arrangements of even tinier obovoid flowers.

Welcome back.