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A feast of spring buds

Posted by Catharine on April 23rd 2012
Forget the daffodils.  The high-point  of spring is the dancing buds and dazzle of early flowers on  trees.   Warm March and the wettest week of April that I can remember has brought out that flush of new leaf colour with pleated leaves unfolding and flowers bursting out in remarkable colour. I visited a garden in Essex under metallic skies.  Driving down lanes through rape fields to get there, the searing yellow against the grey was an eye-full.  Parked up, a deluge of a storm ripped  itself open.  The fury of Stravinsky was upon the place.  Against that  sky the sculptures of Ben Coode-Adams, dotted here and there,  were just the right foil for the rush of the buds. The trees - not just any old garden this but a connoisseur museum' s worth of scarcity and rare value.  Snapped so much with the camera that I dropped it, scribbled furiously the plant names but the hurrying of the season got to me as did the driving rain.  The fever of spring was catching. The magnolia - I think it might be Magnolia Susan -  has peeled itself of its furry rind on the flowers.   The willow catkins looked  frozen for a moment in their jitterbugging.  And snapped just before heaving out improbably hefty leaves, the japanese form of the horse chestnut. Like a good museum, the displays were pretty comprehensively labelled and so I can tell you that this is Aesculus turbinata.  I love the fact that this genus was named for the Roman for edible acorn.
A feast of spring buds