58) Le printemps arrive

La terrace is in use again and doors are opened to let the warmth in rather than shutting out the cold.

Tulips (curly black ones planted last September), peppers and lemon trees (the latter two grown  from pips) have been  put outside from their shelters in the basement and the kitchen.

To my amazement and delight the daffs' I planted last autumn have not only come up, but are actually in flower.

The chives in our herb garden are going berserk.......

.....and the French tarragon is sprouting again after looking very sorry for itself all through the winter.

G has been weeding the irises and they are looking very pleased about it - last year we had an amazing display, even when they were semi-overgrown.

Having been nuked by the minus 16 degree temperatures about a month ago, the forsythia is just now beginning to recover.

The lilacs are budding up nicely and, along with irises, are our most prodigious plants - I think they must both like the chalk.  We are on pretty much pure chalk and as a consequence most of our flowers are blue.

The chalk also means, though, that we have lots of wild orchids and these too are all starting to appear.  Last year on walks around the gite where we were staying we photographed thirteen different varieties.  It will be interesting to see how many we have on our own land, and I thought I might do a series of watercolours to record them.

We now have jasmine outside the front door (which we can now open, having shaved off the bottom), and are all ready for summer.......