Good morning, gardeners. I hope that spring is finally arriving in your neck of the woods. I have had a very busy couple of weeks. On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of meeting Frankenoid, Christin, and many of the NYC-area Kossacks at our meet-up in honor of Frankenoid's visit to the Big Apple. As we speak, Frankenoid should be taking off from NYC for her return trip to Denver, so I am the guest host of garden blogging for today.
Not a lot is happening in my garden. On Thursday, the first of my daffodils finally started to open, but I won't have any good flower pictures from my garden for a week or two. Since I just returned from the UK on Sunday night, I thought that I would post some pictures of eastern England where spring has sprung. Follow me below the fold.
Blue jersey dad and I left New Jersey two weeks ago for a nine-day trip to the UK to complete a short archaeological project. When we left NJ, the temperature was 28 degrees. When we arrived in London, the temperature was about 50 and the daffodils were in bloom. It was just like stepping into springtime (Unfortunately, we had to step back into winter when we came home.)
We spent most of our time in Bury St. Edmunds which is home to the Suffolk Archaeological Unit. Bury is a lovely old town whose street plan has not changed since about 1750. We stayed in a bed-and-breakfast that had medieval wall paintings on the dining room walls. In the Middle Ages, Bury St. Edmunds was home to a powerful abbey. The abbey was closed by King Henry VIII in the 1530s. Today there are lovely municipal gardens on the Abbey grounds. Here you can see the gardens with the modern cathedral in the background:
Here is a close-up of some of the flowers in the municipal gardens:
Here is a picture of the Norman (12th-century) tower that was part of the medieval Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds:
We also visited our son who is a graduate student at Cambridge University. He is a member of Peterhouse College, the oldest of all the Cambridge colleges. There is an area behind the college known as the deer park that has one of the most spectacular gardens I have ever seen. Here are some of the daffodils:
And here is a close-up of some of the daffs:
Finally, here is one of the swans on the River Cam. I know that I should post this image in bird-blogging, but I thought you gardeners would appreciate it:
So what is happening in your gardens? I am really looking forward to some warmer weather.