For some time now I have felt that Spring was early this year – I suppose it makes sense as we had our snow two months earlier than we would normally expect, and there was much more of it this year, so the plants really believe that they have had a winter.

Amelanchier - Apr 2011

I now have my confirmation that Spring is earlier this time around.  Last year the Amelanchier (Snowy Mespilus) was in flower in May – over a month later than in 2011.  It only flowers very fleetingly – within a week, those beautiful snowy white flowers drop to the ground to allow the wonderful bronzy leaves to take over the show.

Magnolia - Apr 2011

The Magnolia isn’t quite into full flower yet, but the Garden Introductory video taken almost exactly the same day a year ago showed absolutely no sign of flower then, and just look at it now.  In fact the whole garden is so much further ahead than it was when I made that video. 

The interesting thing will be what is in flower when we open under the NGS in early June.  Luckily the garden is designed to have a succession of plants in flower rather than peaking at one particular moment, so there is bound to be loads looking really wonderful when the weekend arrives.