When White is Winning.

Of all the colours that step forth to be admired at this time of year in the English countryside, white is the most prolific. Leading the procession at the moment is the ubiquitous blackthorn tree which proliferates in groups all over the Shire, and which flowers abundantly once the sun shows its face in April or early May. They grow in hedgerows and woodland margins and positively glow ice-white in friendly competition with the warming sun.

Down in The Hollow the wild garlic is spreading more than I’ve ever seen it before, even displacing the ivy in some parts – and ivy is a tough plant to be reckoned with. Some of the flower heads which I mentioned recently are now beginning to open, so it won’t be long before the white hanging drapery will clothe the steep embankments of our deepest sunken lane.

And then there is good reason to hope that the monarch of spring, the strong and spiny hawthorn, will burst forth in all his glory. Hedgerows and standard trees alike will be thickly iced with a shimmering mass of cream-white flowers, and there are few more compelling sights anywhere. It appears that a heavy fall of snow has descended in stark yet beautiful contrast to the high temperature and emerald fields, and Tennyson got it just about right when he famously wrote:

Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May.