Monday, 26 February 2018


 Changing of the guard. The Snowdrops will start to fade soon as the daffodils come into flower. The daffs in this photograph look like they're Narcissus pseudonarcissus- the Wild Daffodil that's native to this island.
 These were seen in Hertfordshire where they're by no means common, unlike say the Lake District where Wordsworth wrote:

                                            " I wandered lonely a cloud
                                              That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
                                              When all at once I saw a crowd,
                                              A host, of golden daffodils".

 This photo was taken in a copse which contains the ruin of an old cottage so perhaps they're a remnant of a garden there. "Cottage garden" is now a style of garden design but an actual cottager's garden would have been based on plants of the surrounding area.
 Sadly this floral vernacular is largely lost. I notice this when I walk through rural areas that are still rich in the wildflowers of that locale. When I come to a village the gardens tend to be dominated by the kind of generic garden centre plants that can be purchased anywhere.