Doing destruction

April's here, but the garden is still doing February: snowdrops, aconites, cyclamen, crocuses, bergenia.  Still no daffodils, though some of the miniatures are trying hard.  There are very small signs of progress if you look hard - tulip shoots starting to poke up, erythroniums too, one cowslip bud down in the lawn grass, a few daisies - but otherwise we're still in late winter.

The weather is still cold; daytime temperatures gradually rising to about 5 degrees on the better days, and some bright and encouraging sunshine, but freezing at nights; and the east wind is still there, keeping the ambient temperatures down low.  The snow has mostly gone, but there are still patches and lines of it in corners where the sun doesn't reach.  It has been dry, which is something.  This year I have finally remembered to water the pots, though only when I noticed that the potted chrysanthemum had shrivelled.  This was a bargain impulse-buy last autumn - £5 for a large plant, in full bloom with dark red flowers; it was hideously pot-bound, but I took some root cuttings (now doing well indoors) and the main plant provided some good late colour on the patio for several weeks.  It was surviving well until the latest setback.  So: dry is good for the gardener, but less good for the garden.  The forecast is for the cold, dry weather to continue for another week or two, then we get warmer and wet.  You can't win.

The new bed down by the fence is looking bare and blasted.  Nothing much is coming up, and what is there is taking the brunt of the cold winds.  The only plant looking tolerable is the one I thought would do least well in that position, a Euphorbia characias seedling that I established in front of the ash tree trunk to hide the twiggy growth at the bottom of the tree; it's obviously sheltered by the tree, and isn't showing any obvious damage.

Not good planting weather, nor good for pruning (still need to do those roses!), but fine for destruction, such as weeding and digging out things I don't want.  The raspberry canes that were mounting a take-over attempt in the veg garden got ripped out, which has allowed access to the back of the gooseberry bushes; these can now be pruned properly once the weather gets a touch milder.  I also did some moss-raking in the lawn, covering a minuscule proportion of the grass but removing armfuls of moss (a lot more to do some other day!).  Some other useful digging was also done, removing for example a wild rose that had established itself by the pond and was proving a nuisance.  All the sort of work that is rather mundane but ultimately quite satisfying - you can see that you've achieved something, however minor.

The birds have appreciated the food we've been putting out, with the robin in particular regularly waiting for his breakfast in the morning.  Even the marsh tit has been down, and a wren has been around quite a bit; it found my digging in the fruit patch very interesting.  The pheasant has found a favourite place to stand, to the lee of a pile of twigs and other wood-debris down by the fence which  I've left as a home for insects and small furry things; he's nicely sheltered from the east wind there, but can still keep an eye on the seed container so that he can pick up what the small birds drop.  He now has two lady pheasants visiting, and is being very attentive to them.