January is the time to be gloomy. The days may be getting longer, but the frosts are getting harder. Snow disfigures everything it touches. Sixty years ago, we had 14ft snowdrifts along our mile-long drive in Northumberland and there were still unmelted piles of snow at Winchester when I returned to school after the Easter holidays. Don’t be fooled by climate change —bad winters are certainly not a thing of the past. Another one may be lurking just around the corner.
But one learns from them. I made a big mistake 40 years ago when I found an extraordinary clump of snowdrops in a rook-infested woodland in Wiltshire. The flowers were split down the middle, so that each of its two pedicels carried 2½ petals. Schizoid it may have been, but it also had a distinctive delicacy. The farmer said I could dig it up, so I did so. Then I took it home and potted it up. Soft, refreshing rain watered it nicely. A week later, we had a heavy frost, followed by snow. By the time it had melted and the pot had unfrozen, the snowdrops were reduced to slimy mush. Not one bulb survived. I had learned that plants are much hardier in the ground than in pots.
Snow protects the plants that lie beneath it in alpine meadows. It keeps them dry, too, so, when the great thaw begins and snow turns to water, they have several months of accumulated precipitation to start them into growth. The equation doesn’t work in our climate because it is rain, not snow, that pounds our flower borders from November to March. Except in the big freeze of 1963, of course.
Denne historien er fra January 11, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra January 11, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
