Phenology: March

"March brings breezes loud and shrill

To stir the dancing daffodil."

Last year we had a really long winter, which didn't break until mid-April. This year, despite a series of torrential rainstorms in January, we've been seeing signs of spring since February. Although spring does seem to keep changing its mind...

Here are my phenology photos for March:

Did you know daffs are actually deadly poisonous?

Pussy willow - the grey catkins of goat willow, and others of the Salix family. Used as a symbol of the Chinese New Year.

Soon they burst into fuzzy yellow flowers.

Lesser celandine, or pilewort - a favourite of Wordsworth and Tolkien, amongst others. Maybe I should stop grumping that it absolutely infests my garden.

Blackthorn - which is one of my favourites. The flowers appear long before the leaves, on bare spiny branches. Later in the year these bushes will give us sloe berries to steep in gin :-)

Violets - and this is the first year I've ever noticed them growing wild.