The garden astoundingly fresh today, all around that vibrant, luminous spring green that bursts upon your vision and fills you with an extra dose of life. All the natural high you could ask for.
In the woodland garden, sticky bud scales on the horse chestnut have parted to reveal new leaves in the process of unfurling. Yet to be raised into their final orientation, they hang drooping from slackened ribs like the infant wings of some freshly hatched dragon.
You can almost hear the sap pumping through the vascular system of the garden. Even as you look, it seems to be spreading through these veins of the russet epimedium leaves.
Hellebores are promiscuous things when happy, and they love this dappled shade. Ovaries swelling with their precious cargo, some manage a novice-like air of serene piety, while others just look fit to burst.
And out in the orchard, the snakes head fritillaries are having a field day, offering up a variation on a green, with their more glaucous shades perfectly offsetting the mottled pinks and plums of the flowers. What a day.
