The first unfurling

I NEVER quite remember how glorious it is going to be, that first day in spring when I can stay out all day in the garden, not doing anything unpleasant such as pruning roses, but simply fiddling about—a bit of weeding, a bit of tying in, but mostly just wandering, fitting myself back into the plot.

- Anna Pavord

It’s like being at a party, where people you haven’t seen for ages suddenly loom into view. Meeting them again, you remember why you liked their company. The equivalent of the party pooper is bittercress, pushing in round a juicy peony where it’s not wanted.

By early spring, the bank, rising from the yard by the house, is on the move. There’s a lot of small stuff, snuffling about, low down, and I’ll get round to admiring that, later on. But, at this particular moment, my eye goes straight to the glorious bubbling mound of giant fennel, Ferula communis.

It’s a cousin of the culinary fennel, but much more dramatic. I saw it first in eastern Turkey, where it erupts from the brown hillsides with an exuberance very much at odds with its surroundings. In our garden, it starts into growth ludicrously early, producing filigree fronds of a bril- liant, hopeful green. Sometimes, a sharp frost lays a frond on the ground. But undaunted, it simply presents more feathery stems from the centre of the clump. It’s a glorious thing and, later on in spring, it (and half a dozen more) provides the best possible background to the tulips planted randomly up the slope.