“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”

To begin with, thank you all for 1000 visits!

I have also added some videos of my garden to the sidebar.

March 17: Some sky watching ..





and some rather hot spring weather.

March 18: Today 'just' some snow and 20°C less than the day before




March 19: the night brought some bad frost so we spent it powering up heaters, setting up bonfires and 'flying' among the apricot trees on our gossamer wings like some giant white moths (my favourite type of frost protection). The thing is that for a while now, it seemed like winter was long gone, and it encouraged all the foolish enough apricot trees ( I never did understand what's all the rush with their bloom time, they are among the first fruit trees to bloom in the spring and because of this they are susceptible to spring frost damage) to put on their magnificent bloom show, but all of a sudden after a week of atypical summery weather the winter was back and Mr Frost delivered some bad news. Later on the day turned out to be quite warm so apricot and some other fruit trees were sprayed in order to prevent brown rot and coryneum blight.

March 20: another sunny but unpleasantly cold day, and the weatherman said: More snow tomorrow; the only pleasure I find in all this continual exchange of unusually warm weather with some pretty bad winter chills is that the chills still keep the slugs away from my tender bulb seedlings and some of the sensitive perennials that usually end up all crippled up at this time of the year.

The clouds, the only birds that never sleep.
V. Hugo

Now as the ingenious Oscar Wilde once said : '' Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative'' ... True, these brisk and sudden weather changes do leave me uncomfortably numb in my head, and remarkably ill-tempered, not to mention the horrendous headaches... I know many people have the same bioclimate issues. But I wonder, what about the fellow-gardeners?

Photo of the day

Sneaky, sneaky

What is that little clump of fur, eyeing you up from an old hanging basket? Since kitten age Kristy enjoys sleeping in all sorts of flower pots, in all the weirdest places and positions, so this is just being her usual cheeky self.

The dormant season is when your garden's bones show

Winter in January

Croatia has two main types of climate: Mediterranean and Continental.
The Mediterranean climate (a warm dry summer, a mild winter, and delightful spring and fall) extending along the Adriatic coast and islands. The Adriatic coast, with its 2,600 hours of sunlight yearly, is among the sunniest coastlines in Europe.
The continental region, including the hinterlands, has typical winter temperatures below zero, while spring and fall are pleasantly warm, and summer is hot.
The highest summer temperatures can reach 40°C, and in winter, temperatures in selected areas drop to a low of -15°C.

Situated in the NW continental region, my garden always gets its fair share of winter. Last year though was one of a kind, when we had practically no winter at all, and instead of winter athletic events including shoveling the snow, I was renewing my front lawn and sowing grass in December. The lawn did show its gratitude, but many of my tulips, daffodils, fritillarias and other early spring joys never popped their lovely flower heads out. The global warming made it clear just how big an issue it is and will be. I thought - there goes the winter for good, but this year it was back in its full might and glory, with the cold and brisk northern winds and quite some snow.

A GARDEN IS NEVER SO GOOD AS IT WILL BE NEXT YEAR
''What do gardeners do in winter?
They accumulate fat! ''

Temperatures below zero °C went on for weeks so did the snow, and amidst all of the winter's magic, I long for the springtime . And what better to describe my sentiment than these beautiful lines by Helen Hayes:

All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.

I wonder why they're called SEMPERVIVUMS ...