The plants push on through the soil, regardless of the weather: buds develop, halt and fatten again once the sun is warm. Birds continue - when they can finding suitable nest material - to build their nests. Even for them the month must be confusing. We had several days of glorious warmth, sunny days, maybe a little more windy than usual but nevertheless a huge improvement to the weather our UK family was enduring.
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| 18 March |
Snow ended this unseasonal weather; with equally unusual temperatures...the coldest March in Northern Italy for thirty years, so we were told. On the 18th of March, we woke to a snowy landscape which deepened unrelentingly throughout the day.
The snowdrop flowers were lost beneath all the whiteness and the crocus flowers were over all too soon. Only the hellebore were resilient against the cold. The ones I brought from my Sussex gardened have dwindled in the size of their clumps each year. Difficult to place in an unfamiliar garden, I think their roots - if the ground is cold - have been damaged. My deepest plum-flowered plant has only one flowering stem this years. Nearby are some interesting Italian born seedlings but the mother plant isn't happy. I am going to move them later in the year to a slightly sunnier position to see if they fare any better.
The white seedling is a cross - I believe - between the pure white plant given to me by the late Rosemary Verey and a green-flowered plant. The double that I purchased from Marchants nursery is another that is losing its vigour every year. I will leave the seedlings in situ but move the parent plants, which once enjoyed more leaf mould and a lighter shady situation previously.
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| The single dark stem is to the right of the picture |
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| A white seedling |
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| Double form |
Copyright to all text and photographs belongs to Penelope S Hellyer
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