Floods, flowers & climate change

We set off for our home in Mid-Wales last Saturday. It was still raining to begin with, but brightened up some after we'd been on the road a while. However, being used to the river flooding in York, we weren't surprised to encounter a flooded road deep in the Welsh countryside, where many fields were looking more like lakes. The water table must have been so high that the fields couldn't hold any more, so they spilled out onto the road on both sides, creating flooding of at least 40cm at the shallowest point on the crest of the road.

Fields flooded as far as the eye could see

One car coming in the opposite direction was stranded due to water in the exhaust and was waiting to be rescued. After sizing up the situation, we reckoned that if we drove super slow along the centre of the road we'd be OK, and this time we were. Retrospectively though, it would have been safer to turn back and try to find another route, as we could have been stuck there for hours, making it cold and dark when we arrived here.

You can see the stranded car in the wing mirror

As dusk was falling when we eventually got here, the priority was to get the house warm and dry. So first things first, P brought some logs in from the barn and lit the wood stove, whilst I put the food away, fed the cats, who seem happy to travel regularly from home to home, and started to make supper, ratatouille with a baked potato and some vegan cheese.

After we'd eaten we had a quick game of backgammon and then settled down by the wood stove to listen to The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews, while the gale outside howled a mean old blues all of its own.

Next morning the wind had subsided and the sun was shining in fits and starts. I couldn't wait to get my boots on and get out into the garden to see if there was any storm damage. Sadly a large camellia in bud had been snapped off at the roots, a limb of a plum tree had been torn off and an old sweet chestnut, host to Paul's Himalayan Musk rambler, had come down. The tree was probably weakened due to sweet chestnut blight.

Although the garden was strewn with debris, there were still some surprises to warm the cockles of the heart.  Snowdrops and primroses abound, and there were daffodils just starting to bloom, beautiful little cyclamen coum under the birch in the front garden, with a few battered lavender blue crocuses amongst them and the corsican hellebore opposite the front door.

Snowdrops in the lane

Cheerfulness at the entrance to the wheel garden

Cyclamen coum with crocuses top left

Corsican hellebore in front garden

Other delights were the euphorbias, camellias and my favourite dark violet hellebores, much beleaguered but still managing a few gorgeous blooms.

Helleborus niger

Wood spurge,Euphorbia amygdaloides
softening a stone pot

Spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides hybrid

Moss encrusted dry stone wall in barn garden  
with colourful euphorbia in foreground

The mahonia was looking splendid and scents the path with its delicate fragrance. There are many camellias around the garden, this year it looks like Adolfe Audusson has won the race for the first to flower, but the delicious single white, Cornish Snow, first spotted in Penny Condry's glorious garden, won't be far behind.

Mahonia x media 'Charity'

First to flower, Camellia 'Adolfe Audusson'

My favourite single white, Camellia 'Cornish Snow' in bud

It does strike me that the end of February is a little too early for some of these plants to be flowering, as it's likely they'll be frosted as soon as there's a cold snap.  With global warming it's hard to imagine which plants will adapt and which will perish.

Snowstorm in the wheel garden

I'll finish as I started with the extreme weather we seem to be getting.  Here's a view of tonight's snowstorm, another indication of a climate that can't make up it's mind whether it's winter or spring.