Hortiventure

Bluebell woods at Aqualate Mere National Nature Reserve in Shropshire, April 2018. A site managed by Natural England. Even without the constancy of a garden close to me at the moment, I am keenly aware of all the different growths that occur throughout the year. My senses are heightened from currently living on a canal boat, being closer to nature, and I feel this is all the more from having acutely experienced winter this year. On the canal. Finally Spring has arrived. My obsession starts with snowdrops, as soon as I glimpse a stray flowering one in a graveyard or somewhere I suddenly crave to see drifts of them and set about seeking such scenes. I am not a galanthophile at all, my favourite is still Galanthus nivalis - common European one, and then maybe about four or five other curious ones (S. Arnott - fragrant, Hippolyta - a double, the curious crinkly one - Diggory and Trump the perfectly patterned almost ace of spades one). What I am always after is a good coloniser

The sensation of chasing spring in Pennsylvania in the US is further intensified by the fact that the spring season there is much shorter than in the UK - blink and you might have missed it. Plus seeing the plants of my native country is great but it’s like old comforts, flora of another country on the other hand especially their wild ones was a heady rush of exoticism fuelled by the fact that this might be one of the few chances I get to see them in this way. I was fortunate to have experienced a mild winter in my time there in 2018, but even then it felt like a never ending bleak dark grey and brown broken up only at times by heavy snow and a new appreciation of evergreens and conifers. Cathedral of trees at Mt. Cuba Center. The deciduous woodlands are extraordinary there, dominated by tall tulip trees Liriondendron tulipfera , Acer and beech - Fagus grandiflora , but also a great variety of oaks, white ash and hickory species. Andrew Wyatt - a famous artist of that