Is spring really in the air . . . . . .

. . . . . or is it just a kid-on? 

I went down to the Green Shoots Walled Garden at Glencruitten this afternoon to give my beds, or one of them anyway, a good top-dressing of compost. Barrowing compost gets harder every year, but it's good to start the vegetable growing process again. Took down the runner bean sticks and cleaned off all the shoots from last year - I'll transfer them, together with the pea supports, to the other bed this year. It looks better, but more still to be done. I'll need to do the same in my polytunnel bed in Glen Lonan sometime soon - if I'm allowed to drive up there! 

Although the estate is very run down there are still some good plants here and there. This unknown rhododendron was flowering today in a little dell beside the car park where there's also a huge Crinodendron hookerianum and some big exotic ferns - Polystichum munitum, I think.

Quote of the Day:
 
Henry David Thoreau  - “Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?”