From the moment primroses start to line the hedgerows and woodpeckers knock in the woods, we know the farm is about to burst into life. Newborn calves and lambs will join the baby birds, nestling rabbits and emerging butterflies. But hands down, our favourite harbinger of the end of winter is wood anemomes.
They creep along the woodland floor at an agonising slow pace, growing just six feet in a hundred years. Their presence is a surefire way of knowing if a woodland is established, old or positively ancient. We have a pocket of long-established woodland tucked away on the farm that is privileged to have a whole galaxy of these beautiful star-like flowers. They carpet the woodland floor for just a short period of time, before the bluebells look down their long noses at them and the leaves on the trees steal the sunlight from above.
We can hardly wait.
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