The blurred boundary of changing seasons

As the year turns nature dresses and redresses herself in a succession of seasonal floral and foliage combinations. Mostly this is a gradual affair in my garden, but the boundary between winter to spring offers the sharpest of the mostly blurred, creeping seasonal changes. There is the fading of the scented, late-winter blossom of Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ whilst, at the same time, along the top of the fence Clematis armandii ‘Snowdrift’ begins opening into small cascades of white flowers as it weaves its way through a climbing rose.

Around the edges of the budding, deciduous shrubs the shy, drooping hellebores take centre stage for a few weeks pushing their way through between a dwarf hebe or two.

And, it wouldn’t be spring if there weren’t patches of light shade lit with clusters of pale sunny primroses.

From March into April the pace of new growth begins to pick up and everywhere new fresh green shoots remind me of the variety of perennials that will take their place in the limelight at some point all the way through to the Michaelmas daisies of November!

Summer potential – daylilies

Lime green, sap green and green gold – nature’s spring palette

With the turning of the seasons there is a change in the light levels. The animals and the plants respond, but I think human beings, even living within a 24-hour artificially lit world, sense the change.

Ophelia gold
Just finished.

The scarf I started in the first week of March (see Image Translations) has ended up with the final colours pale pink, light blues and a bright grass green being added as the spring sunlight has started to pour through the window. Sap green, lime green and pale yellow with a few white highlights are the colours of my spring garden and they are just the dye colours I’m mixing up. I know I’m a human being, but I also feel I am still very much on nature’s continuum.