Clare’s French Country Diary

Clare’s French Country Diary

Well, Spring is almost upon us as I write this. Although, it has been the weather I call ‘4 seasons in one day’ for the last few days! Sleet showers, then brilliant sunshine plus a howling gale then minus temperatures overnight.

I find the stirrings of springtime quite magical, the earth is waking up here in the northern hemisphere and nature knows what to do! Glimpses of snowdrops are closely followed by the ‘tete a tete’ mini daffodils, then my taller daffodils join the yellow party in the front garden.

When we moved into the house, there was no front garden, just quite a bit of land, with nothing but grass, (well nettles in large amounts!) so we added the fence across from the shed and garage, to join onto the house and create the front garden, with the help of friends Suze and Ed. Shortly after, gates were added too. Friends Martin and Kerry built the stone pillars and then the wooden gates, found second hand at the local charity Emmaus, were finally hung into place. After that of course, I wasted no time in digging out and planting three new borders. A lot of bulbs were added, and irises too, as they come into their own in May in our area and are such amazing vivid colours.

A wise friend once told me to add plants in each season, so you will then have plants which flower all year around. Clever that, so if you are in the garden centre in April and there are cherry trees in blossom, you can more or less say, each April your cherry trees will blossom for you.

Talking of blossom, our Mirabelle tree (a type of small plum) started her first blossoms on 19 February this year, just missing Martin’s birthday. I really hope the flowers don’t catch the early morning frost, as the last 2 years this has resulted in zero mirabelles from our tree. It is too big a tree to protect with fleece so there is

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meet new friends, sharing a love of gardens and plants. I mentioned at our last meeting about organising a Spring wreath-making workshop, which was met with some confused faces! I feel a door wreath or swag for outside or inside adds a cheery welcome whatever the season, and is a fun way to get people together to add some colour to their homes. I cut lots of our wisteria back in the autumn, and have been creating mostly round shapes with the long, wispy, easyto-bend wisteria prunings. Eco-friendly and it saves me putting them through my new garden shredder machine!

nothing I can do apart from hope and cross my fingers for fruit in the summer. It makes a delicious jam and they are also lovely eaten straight from the tree.

So, Easter falls in April this year, I was thinking back two years, to the first lockdown we all went through in March to May 2020. Our house front window is straight onto the road, so people walk past on their way to the boulangerie opposite us. I decided to create an Easter window display, as we couldn’t go anywhere or see anyone in person.

I have quite a few Easter chicks and created a hanging display and added bunnies and ribbons and anything I could find around the house that was remotely spring-looking and cheerful. It certainly cheered me up each morning to look at it and we had a few comments that the children liked to look at the bunnies! Of course, in France it is the bells who bring the chocolate back from Rome and not the bunnies, but they forgave my English ways.

Our new gardening group is meeting up soon for a ‘swap shop’ to share seeds, cuttings etc and I think there will be lots of baking to eat, with tea or coffee. Its proving a lovely way for people to

I have started the tidy-out of the mini greenhouse, and sorted out the seeds, although I did buy some sweet peas romantically titled ‘April in Paris’ and ‘champagne bubbles’, how could I resist those? My friend has one packet and we will be having a grow-along together, although we live apart, we will catch up on sweet pea progress!

I hope you enjoy your Springtime and a little sunshine on your face too, make the most of the garden at this wonderful time of year. See you in June

Clare