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.
Denne historien er fra March 29, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra March 29, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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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