After the big freeze in January, things were looking rather sad in the garden at the Old Sheep Farm. Early shoots were punished for their optimism, and had been frozen solid. When everything thawed, nothing looked like it had survived.
But slowly, slowly, new little shoots started to sprout out of the earth. Even plants that struggled all of last year due to the drought have burst forth with renewed vigour, and things are looking up! I'm excited to see all my new plants, that were measly, single-stemmed things last year, coming up in big clumps, promising a much more flowery display than last year.
Here are some spring blooms that have leapt up in the last week or so!
The heather is looking beautiful now, growing on our old dry-stone wall, especially with some little narcissi peeking out the top:
The exception to all this garden-related optimism, however, is the water garden. Due to a plague of Very Naughty Sheep, most of my newly sprouting plants there have been munched to the ground, bulbs pulled up and everything else deemed inedible (which is not much, it seems...) trampled into the mud. We are beginning to consider a gate at the bottom of the lane...but these sheep can jump a stock fence from a standing start, despite being heavily pregnant right now, so I am not hopeful that we can ever stop them! Much of our lives right now involves rounding sheep into the paddock so we can call the farmer to pick them up, and then having them leap the fence and eat another patch of my flower beds before we have even picked up the phone.
Here, I would insert a photo of said Very Naughty Sheep, but I am usually too busy swearing and cursing to take photos. We should have a brief respite soon, as they have been moved to lower pastures to lamb, so I am hoping my tulips might have time to recover! Until they return to show their lambs where the tastiest flowers are, that is...
Luckily, daffodils are one flower that the sheep don't bother with. They are brightening up our living room right now!
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