Forsythia

 I have learned in nearly twenty five years of marriage that it is not a good idea to rush my husband into precipitate action.  That is why we have two forsythia bushes sitting in capacious blue supermarket planters on our front drive.  They are waiting to go into the two holes in the front shrubbery that he dug last week.  

In a replay of our gardening days we went around the corner to J's house on Monday and he dug up two good sized ones and a further two that J had chopped away at.  This happens when we are minded to dispose of a plant we don't like but J refrained from the final blow and these latter are destined to be hidden the wildlife glade in the park.

The weather on Monday also reminded us of the occasions when we had a fine period to accomplish a task.  The wind blew continuously, soughing in the trees, but the rain did not come until my husband had tidied up, cleaned the paving stones, patched in bits of turf and helped J to load the bushes wrapped in a plastic sheet into the back of her car.  J offered to pay us but we declined.

Then it was home and into the two blue pots he had prepared earlier.  The aim is gradually to replace the wind-scorched yellow privet at the front with forsythia - both the full grown ones we acquired this week and the cuttings we took from the bushes  we planted behind the shed in the glade when we arrived.  Had we thought, back then in 2014, we could have re-used the rather straggly forsythia that was growing along the wall where we now have our blackcurrants grown from cuttings.  But then, as J remarked, we were not to know that.

Muscari

Muscari are a rather nondescript kind of spring bulb that, according to my husband, proliferate.  He was occasionally asked to root them up.  Our muscari were planted in our front beds last year.  As is often the case, they were passed on to us.  It seems that someone gave our friend the gift of a box with a shiny silvery bowl, a small plastic bag of compost and several muscari bulbs.  I explained to her that it was the wrong time of year (some time after Christmas) to plant them and that they were unlikely to flower indoors.  But I took them off her hands.  

I popped them in, out of season, last year and they produced leaves in late spring/early summer.  This year I am gratified to see that they are flowering at the right time.  Somehow the botanical clock inside these bulbs, connected to daylight hours and warmth, has reset itself and prompted them to produce cones of little blue flowers.  

Meanwhile, my husband is out in the front shrubbery preparing for some Forsythia we have been promised.  Again, not the most suitable time of year to dig these shrubs out from a friend's around the corner and translocate them.  But this is what we do.