There are a few consequences to all this excellent rain. Gutters are flooding. Trees are falling. Mud is sliding. As much as we should be grateful for what we are getting while we are getting it, it is getting rather old. Clear and sunny weather that is forecast after today will be a welcome relief from all this muddy sogginess.
Almost all of the flowering cherries have somehow postponed bloom. It has not been unusually cold. It is as if the trees somehow know better than to bloom while so much unusually heavy rain is falling. Otherwise, they might have bloomed only briefly before the blossoms got knocked off. The buds are so fat that I expect they will begin to bloom by the middle of the week.
Only one flowering cherry that always blooms significantly earlier than the others bloomed on time, and is already finished. Considering how heavy the rain was during that time, the light duty bloom actually lasted impressively well.
Daffodils tried to delay their bloom as well; but some could wait no longer. Many were not bothered by the heavy rain. Others were knocked flat, and needed to be propped with small hoop stakes. Only some of those that were planted late in the planting season kept their buds closed this late.
I should be pleased that these hyacinth bloomed at all this year. They are the sort of bulbs that bloom only once in their first year, but then do not get sufficient chill in winter to bloom again. They must be in a cold spot. Unfortunately, it is also a shady spot. The floral stems stretched so much in the shade that they were easily knocked down by the heavy rain. Now they lay there like they have fallen and can’t get up.
I’m sorry about the rain. You reminded me of Dorothy Wordsworth’s words about the famous daffodils which, funnily enough, I have just read: ‘They grew among the mossy stones… some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness’. And, less happily, of the help-I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up advert I so often hear when I am in the US.
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There is not need to apologize for rain. It is natural, and we really should appreciate it anyway. “I’ve fallen and can’t get up!” is such a weird cliche that the advertisement continues, even if people remember it in a bad way. It was already something to joke about in the 1980s.
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WE’ve also had a lot of rain just as the bulbs started to flower. 😦 Many of the freishas are spoilt as I never noticed I’d located the pots under an area without guttering.
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How sad Freesias tend to lay down anyway, and the flowers melt too easily.
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