The conversation of spring

The garden is a magic place this morning, hung with sun-spun scents and sounds, blossom lazily spilling to the ground, birds interpreting the silence.  There are bees humming among the flowers and planes humming far overhead but it is early on a Saturday and not many sounds of people intrude.  The space belongs to the garden and I feel privileged to be allowed in. The green is so new, so fresh and shining.  Even the shaded places tingle in anticipation of the day.  The oak leaves are just full-sized, covering its huge stature with yellow-green light while the hawthorn flowers shine white below, enjoying the attentions of the sun and the orange-bottomed bees. 

Against the blue sky are the red cones of the fir tree, shining like Christmas candles, and the green feathers of ash.  The apples trees are a more intimate experience, near enough to touch, the branches multi-coloured with mustard yellow and grey-green lichen and sprays of apron leaves with pale-pink flowers, a grandmother with babies on her lap.  The plum blossom has finished and in its place are stalks with little green heads.  They are ringed with bent stems of brown stamens like crazy hair.  They are so tiny now but will quietly swell and fill and colour to become a feast for wasps and for us. 

There is a wild meadow underneath.  It has lost its spread of colour as the primroses have gone but in their place there are buttercups reaching tall to try and find the sun. Nearer the house the ornamental tree has blossom the colour of blackcurrant milk, fading now as the clematis that climbs through it bursts open its white cups.  The kerria is fading too, yellow-orange balls of fluff filling the whole hedge.  

There is so much more colour and change in spring than any other time of the year, all with their sequence of opening and fading so as one finishes another one starts like words in a sentence - the conversation of spring.