Spring flowers

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Or should I call them “End of winter” flowers? Or what about “Pre-Spring” flowers?

We have written blogs on Snowdrops over the last couple of weeks but now other flowers are starting to pop up.

These Snowdrops are growing in a garden that I often used to pass when going to work at the plastics factory.

Another photo of the same garden only a week later.

Snowdrops growing alongside the River Great Ouse at its pass through Huntingdon & Godmanchester. They were just beginning to open when I took this picture – but look what they look like 7 days later!

These Snowdrops are now half drowned! They live beside the river & most years they get covered by the rise of the river yet it seems to do them no harm! In fact last year the river covered them several times, once for the best part of 2 weeks! When the waters subsided again they were all covered in mud! It looked most awful but I suppose the mud also brings with it nutrients that keep them going year after year. We read & hear about how beneficial flood waters are for the livelihood of peoples whose lives depend on the mud from flooding rivers.

Here they are underwater! Taken on March 1st.

This clump of Snowdrops I found near the river but not in the same place as the others above. These are no more than 5 minutes walk from my place but I’d never seen them before. It’s a section further up from where I was accustomed to walk to work. The flooded Snowdrops are between the towns of Huntingdon & Godmanchester. They are on the G’chester side of the river about 20 minutes walk from my place. The photo was taken from the footbridge which I used to cross 2x a day 5 days a week for 5 years going & coming from the plastics factory where I used to work till being made redundant a year ago.

I don’t have any Snowdrops on my balcony but I do have quite a few Species Crocuses & they have been flowering for several weeks now.

As I think that’s enough of Snowdrops for this year I now want to show you the Species Crocuses now flowering on my balcony.

Crocuses are such brilliant flowers for the beginning of spring! They bring us a foretaste as it were of the summer colours. I used to grow the big Dutch hybrids but when I first grew the species ones I was won over the first time! These little bulbs have been growing for about 3 years in pots on the balcony, perhaps longer if not the same corms I originality put in. Most years they are grown under Pansies or last year, for the first time, Violas.

This year they are growing in the same pots as Fuchsia cuttings! When the Pansies finished I put some Snapdragons seedlings in each of the pots.

But later in the summer I needed space for my Fuchsia cutting & I “plonked” them in these pots – hence the labels you can see! I hope they have survived the winter.

I had them in the greenhouse all winter & I only put them out on sunny days but put them back in when frost is forecast.

Here is a photo of what they all look like on the balcony railings.

I love these white ones. I took the photo just today, 7th March.

This one is also from today but the colours are so lovely! I could upload all 9 pics of the 9 pots on the railings but that might be “overkill”! You can find more Crocus flowers in my pictures.

I hope you enjoy looking at these lovely little flowers as much as I do! At least on the balcony railings they are high up & I don’t have to get down to ground level!

• 7 Mar, 2010
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