from The Weatherstaff PlantingPlanner – intelligent garden design software
I’m not too great when it comes to delayed gratification. I want spring – and I want it now!
Actually, I wanted it a couple of weeks ago. I like the changing of the seasons. I love autumn colours and crisp winter days, but now, I’d like the seasons to change again.
With the arrival of February, spring seemed almost within the grasp of my gardening-gloved hand. And really, February’s such a little month to endure. Those missing few days at the end of February mean that by mid-month, it’s almost over! There’s Valentine’s Day, too, slap in the middle, to cheer us up with chocolates and flowers. Suddenly, supermarket shelves are laden with bunches and baskets of flowers. Garden centres are bursting into life again. Little pots of mini plants sit, huddled together, fluttering their eyelids, seducing passers-by to pop them in a trolley.
It’s enough to make you think that spring is just round the corner. I eyed up some new containers, made mental notes of new must-haves, even scribbled a few names on a scrap of paper. But it was chilly and getting dark. I resolutely turned my back and promised to return soon.
And it’s just as well I resisted those enticing charms. For then along came the Beast from the East, blowing in freezing air straight from Siberia, sounding the death knell for some almost-made-it, would-be survivors in the plant world.
Still it’s almost March – roaring in like a lion – and you have to have daffodils for St David’s Day. So, I’ll watch the stalwart little ‘Tête-à-Tête’ through my window (you didn’t think I walked away with nothing, did you??) and dream of spring.
The RHS says it’s hardy to -20, so if the Beast gallops off westwards, we should be fine.
Click here for the Weatherstaff Fact file on Narcissus.
