Almost April

Spring, indeed.

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
--Swinburne

Not my favourite poet but someone on-line quoted "snows and sins" the other day and under the circumstances (the rain stopped last night, at least for a while) it seemed a good fit for today. So I googled to come up with the rest.

The back garden is exploding. Both the birches are again covered in leaves, the bougainvillea bent its trellis with the weight of its growth, and the weeds, as is their wont, are showing the most dynamic growth of all. Even The Memsahib was out there the other day cutting back the yellow lantana. (This is truly remarkable. In general she doesn't believe in trimming anything. Her idea of a proper garden is most people's idea of a jungle rain forest.) And the poor old cypresses: the wind and rain bent down their branches in all directions. That's no way for cypresses to look. I think I can tie up most of them but some are going to have to be cut which will leave great brown streaks on the parts that are no longer covered.

We have some serious gardening to do.