'Spring Time Light'

      Last weekend I went for a walk to the Udelny park. I had my camera with me and I wanted to take pictures of how sun warms the nature. After all we're in March!

I was glad to see that the snow has almost melted on the hills of the park and it only remains on a flat lawn. A month ago children had been tobogganing here and now spots of soil and grass are already visible.

 In some places streams have run, and they are deep up to the grass. Trees also wake up: the ends of the branches have begun to turn yellow and green.

The sky is blue-gray in those days, trunks and branches of oaks and birches are clearly visible against the sky.

Here is the poem 'Spring Time Light' by Robert Patinson. I think it goes well with my photos of a vernal day:

Spring Time Light

At last the mornings welcome light
has drawn the darkness from the night,
and growing days give time and heat
for nature's bounty to repeat.

The trees sing out in chorus lines
words which blossoms redefine,
these garlands in the trees reveal
the land can now revive and heal.

All creatures feel the warming hand
of sun beams scattered on the land
as battered grass begins to grow,
released once more the rivers flow.

Do you like the first signs of nature awakening? Do you believe in people's omens that early spring predicts hot summer?

GBBD in March

March has arrived and I see in your blogs, my friends, that crocuses are blooming, primrose revive, the first shoots emerge from the soil. Each month waiting for Garden Blog Bloom Day I think what I can show in my Northern garden. So last weekend I arrived there and was pleasantly surprised that the snow is almost melted.

Even crocuses, buds and green leaves have appeared. The evergreens are reaching for the sun too. Perhaps they too, as people feel the warmth, the beginning of spring.

In general, the beginning of spring in the North of our Planet is always an exciting spectacle, especially when an ice drift begins on the rivers. This time thick ice melts in my garden pond too. Needles of thuja turn green, buds of rhododendrons grow, because in a month and a half their flowering begins.
Here is rhododendron 'Helsinki University', Lysimachia nummularia (golden creeping Jenny) and Lamium maculatum (devil's clover). 

 
Some plants stored their leaves under the snow and now are green and fresh: 

  They are Primula and Dianthus barbatus (Sweet Williams).
I also have cuttings of Dianthus chinensis (China pink) and Dahlia tubers that I stored all winter and now they started to grow on my windowsill: 








I sowed seeds in paper and plastic modules.
Every day I watch how fast they're growing. Here are tomato seedlings "Gardener's delight' variety and Nasturtium.

When tomato seedlings grow enough I'll need to separate them and to plant in bigger pots. What is your experience in separating of seedlings?
It's all I can show you in March. Hope in April I'll be able to take more photos of growing plants in my garden.













 

Orchids and Bromeliads in the Conservatory

     Recollecting last September and my trip to Sweden I want to tell you about a day spent in the Conservatory of the Bergius Botanic Garden, Stockholm. These photos made me come back in those warm and humid halls full of beautiful plants.

 

First I went right to South African room, maybe you remember in my previous post that the Fern room was closed. The air was cool and moist, there were plants from temperate rainforests of South Africa. I saw flowering orchids, anthuriums, bromeliads and amaryllis.

In other part of the room the Epiphytes were planted, the trunks and walls were full of them. Epiphytes are the plants that grow upon other plants in order to get closer to the sunlight, but without being parasitic.  

Among the succulent plants found in the South African room there were spurges, aloes (that are my favorites). The shrubland known as fynbos and semi-desert plants, such as proteas, restios, geraniums and heath also were in this room.

 In the humid tropical Palm hall bananas, papaya and palm trees thrived among the lianas and aerial roots of the rainforest plants. Cacao and papaya trees, cotton tree also were cultivated here.

In the subtropical section there was a bed of the insectivorous pitcher plants, they are fascinating plants able to digest insects and absorb the nutrients. I'd like to grow them in my garden to fight with snails and slugs :))

Here is my video about Bergius Botanic gardens: