First blossoms

Getting ahead of myself now in the photochronicles of Covid-year nature; I'll need to go back and report on the blissful Fridays of 2021 so far when friend Cally and I cycled to Kew Gardens and back, drinking hot soup on various benches in temperatures as low as -2. That alone would not cover the more recent observations of flowerings elsewhere, not least in my favourite of all these west London havens, the Walled Garden of Fulham Palace. For me, loveliest of trees to date - apart from the Kew magnolias, slowly coming into full flower - is the plum which yields so much fruit among the beds which will eventually flourish That's the tower of All Saints Fulham beyond in the above picture, a seemingly rural scene. The scent is heavenly; the bees love the flowers. 

Along the north wall nearby, there's a spaliered almond tree 

and here, even a few weeks back, the bumblebees were at work.

Magnolia by the Tudor gate into the garden finally budding,

though the more spectacular specimens will have to wait for the Kew Gardens entry. I always wait for the magnolia stellata in a front garden on the nearby street to put forth its white flowers, which it had begun to do in profusion by 9 March.

There's also a good 'un in the Margravine Cemetery

but the non-Kew glory has to belong to the Chelsea Physic Garden, poplar-like in its uprightness.

Still not a great deal to be seen in CPG, though on our first visit of the year, dwarf irises in pots around the statue of Sir Hans Sloane were putting on a vivid show

and a lone grown-up in a bed near the beehives, Iris unguicularis (Algerian variety).

I've never paid much attention to hellebores below, but since being advised to pick up the drooping flowers, marvel at the markings on the flowers,

and I love them all the more knowing they're attractive to bees, out and about in CPG on 21 February.

Also in CPG, the last of the snowdrops on which the place prides itself - more for the variety than the abundance.

First blossoms I saw were on a visit to the Physic Garden on 23 February - the tree that stands in front of the big house on Swan Walk

amd a handsome Cornus mas further down the street.

Crocuses have a long life, and again the variety is something to wonder at. There are clumps among the daffodils in the walk to the side of Chiswick House Gardens

and plenty in Old Brompton Cemetery, to make up for the lack of blossom,

 while grape hyacinths now flourish

and those exquisite small blue flowers known, I think, as Chinodoxa.

First true carpet of daffodils I noticed also at Brompton Cemetery,

though they're now everywhere, and especially lovely in the green between the Walled Garden and All Saints Church.

This Friday should have been another Kew cycle, on a very bright and sunny day, but Cal had booked for the following week. No matter; we crossed to the Eyot in the middle of the Thames at low tide

to walk its length

and reeded shore

while taking in views across to the houses of Chiswick Mall

before cycling on past the Eyot beach 

and the grand house on the Mall with the big magnolia in full spate

to Chiswick House for soup on a bench in full sun and accompanied by thrashing bird activity on the long water below, before walking around the lake

and then cycling on to cross Barnes Bridge and take a walk around the Leg of Mutton, which will figure in an earlier Friday spotlight - an old reservoir, now a nature reserve, the existence of which between the river path and the main road to/from Barnes I hadn't know about until recently. Blackthorn blossom was the punctuating glory here

and there was something magical about looking from one, across the reeds, to another on the opposite side, seemingly a cloud just landed.

Normal service to Kew to be resumed next week. Meanwhile, I was immensely cheered to catch first sight of one of the blackbirds who usually hang about the back yard in the warmer months, on the very first day of spring. Looks like a young male just becoming an adult (a bit of speckliness remains on the breast).

Early spring along the Thames

Should have been in the snowy valleys of Valdres, Norway, from last Thursday to Sunday, savouring the Hemsing Festival. But alas, my operation scheduled for two Tuesdays earlier, was cancelled without the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital admin even telling me; I only found out because I rang five times to check over confusion about a local or a general anaesthetic (the latter, obviously), to be told 'oh, they should have phoned you'. With the pain from the stent having intensified, and a cold on top of all that, I didn't feel I could cope with the travel. So I stayed at home, mostly rested and made some limited excursions which cost me afterwards but were well worth doing in such freakily warm weather (about which much has been said in a 'this-is-all-very-well-but' way I understand, though I do remember patches like this in mid-Feb from years back). And on Monday morning I had my op; stones and stent all out, so I'm moving more easily now if taking it quietly.

The above is spring tide at Chiswick Mall. Heading back from Chiswick House, I found a group of people, including cyclists with their shoes and socks off, hovering because the river water had come up on to the pavement as well as the road. But I could see it was going out, and waited, pleasantly chatting. Sometimes it's good to be detained by nature.

First springwatches, after various traversals of Brompton Cemetery on the way to and from the hospital, took place the previous week. First a Valentine's morning dream; high time to see what was going on in the walled garden of Fulham Palace. Not much, though the magnolia by the Tudor gateway seemed almost ready to flower

and potatoes were lined up In the glasshouse for planting.

This time we headed out of the south gate, to be faced by a very vocal robin on the fence that separates Fulham Palace gardens from All Saints Church

in the graveyard of which was the first crocus display I came across of any substance.

This one was especially surprising because of the humming of innumerable bees, which proves crocuses/croci are good for more than just saffron. I think the Palace is upping its supply of hives again after a big swarming left it with only one hive last year.

So we proceeded to a lunch in warm sun at the Garden Centre cafe, after which I wandered back to Fulham Palace to pick up a couple of scented geraniums from the cart for the window boxes (others have survived the winter so far). Time to admire the bare shape of the glorious copper beech, complete with nests, before it takes on its full beautiful leaf.

Next day, in the afternoon, to Kew for the first time this year. Its crocus patches used to be by the Victoria Gate, but now they're more extensive around the Temple of Aeolus

and in the arboretum area. From above:

and below:

with catkins to provide some contrasting colour.

More with a moon behind them between the larches of the lake

and same moon above one of the redone vases of the newly-restored Temperate House.

with that unique light of incipient leafing on the trees nearby.

After all this abundance, Chelsea Physic Garden wasn't doing a great deal, and I left in some dudgeon that the wonderful Tangerine Dream Cafe - slightly bohemian but easy going village-institute service, first-class food - had been replaced by some anonymous 'please wait to be seated' franchise; the corporate spirit has spread here (signed a petition some time back, but clearly the new director was not to be swayed). Much of the interest was in hangers-on from last summer and autumn - the pomegranates by the Swan Walk gate, being frequented by a squirrel,

a lone teasel with a backdrop of eucalyptus

and a sunflower husk facing the first flowering magnolia (M. denudata) I saw this year.

A frond of Dicksonia antarctica unfurling

and dwarf irises rather oddly displayed in an open-air cabinet were catching the light

while there was brilliant sunshine by the pond near Sir Hans Sloane's statue, the clam shells brought back from the voyage of Captain Cook's Endeavour.

Rather more classical ornamentation in what felt, in reality, like a really spooky late afternoon light at Chiswick House gardens the following afternoon

and more modest crocus displays than at Kew, but with a Palladian backdrop, and for free.

Camellias are already profuse in the Grade 1 listed, Lottery Fund-restored greenhouse (March is the official display month).

First coot nesting rather early on the lake.

The ring-necked parakeets which have spread upstream at least as far as Kensington Gardens are here too, as well as at Kew (top), and kissing on a willow by the Thames. Big debates going on now about culling, but still, to see them is as deceptively exotic as...high temperatures in February.

And so back as the sun set over Chiswick's church and brewery

with signs of spring life in some of the other gardens of Chiswick Mall

and another magnolia partly bloomed in front of the last house before the passageway with the Dove pub in it.

A new haunt discovered the following day when we attended a special commemoration of the great Blondin at Kensal Green Cemetery. But that's for another photojournal.