It is a well known fact that I hate snakes.  Given how many there are here, vipers and grass snakes, not to mention slow worms which may not be a snake but sure as hell look like one, I should be used to them.

Usually they start to come out in May.  However the weather has been warm so I guess they have decided it is time to go a wandering.  Over the road they are digging a swimming pool and what slithered out once they started to dig not one but two families of vipers including various sizes of babies.  Now that would be enough for me to say, who needs a swimming pool?

I was taking some compost to the compost bin behind the shed in the veggie part of the garden and had just dumped it and decided to go look at the wild flower bit and was just about to put my foot down when I froze, screamed and stepped back suddenly.  Yes a viper laying right across the path.  A fairly big one at that. That’s the trouble with them they don’t go away when they hear you as some people think, they freeze and lay there waiting for you to put your foot on them.  Luckily that didn’t happen as, if there is one thing I don’t need in these weird times of ours, it  is to be in hospital!

So, yes I hate snakes!

 

 

 

Spring is truly here.  Being at 500 meters my garden is behind those at lower altitudes including my friend Roger who has just sent me pictures of his beautiful tree peonies.  I love tree peonies and have several throughout the garden but it will be a couple of weeks before they flower.   I first came across tree peonies in a book about an Italian garden.  So I mistakenly thought they were not for me with the lows of winter going down to -22c in one memorable winter!  How wrong could I be they are as tough as their namesakes, the peony and are one of the earliest perennials  to flower.

Here are some pictures of what is flowering at the moment:

 

Plus an early rhododendron and a very busy bee on the apple blossom!

and, of course, Roger’s tree peonies

Here we are in April and the wind and rain from March are a thing of the past.  No rain for three weeks and the garden is again drying out.  It is 25c this last week, which is great given we are all home enduring lockdown, but the gardener in me is crying out for rain.

The plum, pear, peach and cherry blossom are all out and no frost at the moment which is good news.  The small cherry tree by the shed got caught by the last frost so no peaches from it this year.  Here’s hoping for the rest.

With no garden centres  open in France, no plug plants or fertilisers can be bought so for the first time I am growing my own broccoli (purple sprouting and normal), sprouts and kale.  They are all doing well in the greenhouse.  I am also making nettle plant food.  After all I have more than enough nettles.  Cut the nettles (try not to get stung) and fill a bucket with them then add water.  After three weeks you can strain the liquid, dilute 10 times and you have your plant food.  Apparently tomatoes and roses are not that fond of it but it is fine for leafy plants.  Keep away from the house as it becomes very smelly.

Here are some pictures of what is flowering at the moment.  The small white blossom tree is a pear I bought in the autumn and it is flowering its socks off.

 

Well, the clocks have gone forward and March is almost over.  Yesterday it snowed, today it is blowing a gale!

The gale brought down a couple of small trees just by the greenhouse!  Luckily they didn’t hit it.

Now, normally under these circumstances I would ring Mike to come over…  not an option at the moment.   So, singing “I can do Anything, as loud as I could I sawed through the branches blocking the path! Voila finished.  The rest can wait until it is possible for Mike to get here.  Two months at least I reckon!

the small magnolia in the front is out.    The top flowers (left)  are now frost damaged but the lower ones are fine.

Well, we are in lockdown and are getting used to not just going somewhere when we fancy it!  But the garden is most definitely not in lockdown, it is coming into flower by the day.  The primula’s are stunning and the daffodils are still coming out.  As a friend has said, thank goodness we have our gardens.  I think they will keep us sane in these very strange times.

I have realised that I will probably not be able to buy the usual plug plants for broccoli, sprouts and lettuces so I have sown my own.  About time I hear people say.

Today was 22C

on our balcony and all the blossom is either out or almost out.  The peach trees plus the plum blossom is fully out.  Absolutely lovely but I am sure way too early.  It is predicted to be -2c on Sunday night..  can you spot the bee on the peach tree blossom?

There are so many bees in the trees you can hear them from quite a distance.

The reason I have been late posting March is because one of our cats, Ginger, went missing.

He was sick with cat flu (caught from his brother, Soda).  He had it much worse than Soda and also has a dodgy heart.  So when, last Sunday morning, he disappeared for four days we feared and had begun to accept the worst.  Only then do you realize what they mean to you.

However, on the Thursday morning he suddenly reappeared!  Suddenly the world was a different place and we could again enjoy it.

Welcome home Ginger.

Well, March has followed the first part of the old saying.  It certainly has come in like a lion so we can only hope it follows the second part and goes out like a lamb!

The daffodils, crocuses and hellebores are continuing to flower and they must have liked the weather last year as there are more this year than ever before!

Also the wild scillas on one of the banks (very wet as there is an underground stream there is a lot of rain it starts to come through a bit).  They are lighter than their cultivated counterparts.

 

Everything was coming out, or so it seemed, the camellia, scillas, dwarf irises, crocuses, the peach tree (nooo it is only February) and the primula’s.  All mostly a month early and thenthe snow arrived yesterday and it is still snowing as I write this.  Back to a monochrome world!  At least when it snows this late in the winter you know it can’t last too long, or at least you hope ….

I picked this bunch yesterday.  I have never known the wild daffodils to be in flower so early so here they are together with crocuses and snowdrops.

In French snowdrops are perce-neige, loosely translated as penetrating snow.  I love them.

February continues to be mild.  Last year we had freezing temperatures and half a metre of snow, this year it was 18c last Sunday.  This week is colder, around 8c, which is fine.  I even, at long last, got my garlic planted.  I had ordered from a well known seed company in the UK in early January.  The rest of the order arrived and said the garlic would be shipped on January 20.  I gave it a week and then queried it. I was then told that they only shipped seeds outside the UK.  Wonderful, they could have told me that when I ordered.  So I eventually found some locally.  It is meant to freeze tonight which is good because I once read that garlic needs freezing temperatures to grow properly.  Not sure I believe this as the largest area for garlic production in France is the Provence which, lets be honest,  is not known for its freezing temperatures.

 

A view across the garden, the first daffodils and a lovely hellebore.