Early Spring Flowers – Vol 1

Here in the UK we are between springs. Meteorological spring started on 1st March 2015, whereas astronomical spring does not arrive until 20th March. What does nature make of this?

The first rays of spring sunshine glowing through winter’s glaze.

Astronomical seasons are based upon the Earth’s tilt towards or away from the sun as it orbits. The transition points are known as equinoxes. These tend to be variable and messy. So people decided to break the seasons down neatly, based upon the Gregorian calendar; so meteorological spring consists of the months of March, April and May.

Winter Jasmine

The flowers in the garden tend to make their own mind up depending upon the actual weather that they are experiencing. The winter jasmine has been holding the fort, but the first signs that winter may be making way for spring are the snow drops, previously written about in this post here. I was alerted to this BSBI snowdrop ID sheet by Ryan Clark, you can view his nature and ecology blog here.