This February’s first golden days of spring, changed just a quickly into ice and snow as the month drew to a close and looking back now it almost seems surreal.
The taste of Arctic life with “The Beast from the East” transformed our normally sub tropical Cornish climate into another world and it will live in our memories for years to come I’m sure and yet the garden was transformed touched by the magic of pristine snow.
February’s garden diary
So this month my photo diary for the garden is in two halves, or should it be three? Starting with a golden evening of early spring, when I lingered on in the garden, taking photos of the terraces, enchanted by the golden light; the excitement of capturing the snow-fall transforming our garden into an out of date Christmas Card and finally and most reassuringly, the return of spring with the surprising survival of most of our garden unscathed. Yes three parts it is!
Golden light on the Terrace
The golden hour just before dusk is a great time for garden photography and for this month’s garden diary, I wanted to show you the layout of the formal gravelled terraces lined with box balls, in front of the Blue bedroom and the Garden room, that make an introduction to the wider garden as a sort of buffer zone between the formal courtyard parterre and the sweep of lawns that leads to the Italian Garden and West walk. When summer arrives these terraces will be softened again, by the tall globe-like flowers of the flamboyant Blue Agapanthus, Geraniums and Olive trees.
A garden transformed by snow
The Ednovean farm garden was totally transformed by the rare snowfall as February changed to March, so let me lead you through it, area by area, over the two days that culminated in the first meteorological day of Spring.
Let me show you around the Ednovean Farm Garden in the snow
The entrance to the car park as the first snow fell thickly
The courtyard Parterre in the formal courtyard beside the house, looked magical with its dusting of white
There was a soft pristine silence that held the garden suspended almost from reality in the downy soft covering of powdery white.
The warm golden terraces I showed you earlier were very different blanketed in snow.
Finally I visited the Italian Garden
Spring returns with golden days
We woke up on the third morning and the snow had gone leaving the plants to recover. And recover they did – the daffodils determinedly springing back upright overnight, lending their golden glow of spring as the sun returned to warm the garden again.
Somehow though, I think it will be a long time until I forget this strange February Garden diary when golden spring turned to ice and snow in a blink of an eye, as The Beast from the East came to call and plunged us through the looking glass to the Arctic.
