Why aren't bluebells always blue?

When I came to live here in 2002 there was a small clump of Spanish bluebells in the front garden which had one white flowerspike among the blue. This year the rather larger clump has nine white flowerspikes, which is roughly one more each year. They are evenly scattered through the clump, what's more, not all in one place. Over the years I have looked, idly, at other clumps in other people's gardens, and have never seen any white ones.

In the coombe there are quite a lot of native bluebells, as there should be, but there are some Spanish ones as well. I suspect that some kind soul has attempted to improve on nature in the coombe in the past, as there are a few other not-quite-native species. Daffodils and narcissi, for example, which although naturalised are definitely not the native daff. The garden bluebells. Pittosporum, that NZ import which scents the nights so strongly this time of year. A lone clump of cyclamen. There have been at least two bouts of tree planting, probably coinciding with the storm water drainage that was put in there; at the top of the coombe, the earliest planting, there are still trees, both native and non-, with support stakes either side, and down at the bottom a later session which have been given the marginally less ugly curly plastic protectors. Luckily, however, there's been more neglect than 'management' over the years.

However, I digress. A couple of years ago I noticed that one patch of native bluebells had a couple of pink flowerspikes. Not barbie pink, more a delicate mauve, but definitely not blue. And again last year; same patch, same pink bluebells in among the normal ones. This year they are there again, but now there's another four pink flowerspikes, some three feet away from the originals. I could understand a mutation spreading in one place, but a yard away seems quite adventurous.

Now green. I saw the first green caterpillar of the year today, quite well grown. There are more and more butterflies about - an orange tip last Sunday at Hessenford, for example - and quite a few crane flies. I seem to have mosquito bites on both arms, but just in case they aren't mozzies I've given Ty a dose of Frontline. It's coming up to tick season, after all, and we are going on the moors at the weekend.

I think my white jasmine is definitely dead, which is unfortunate. Poor little cutting wasn't strong enough to resist the unnaturally cold winter. On the other hand, last year I shoved half a dozen lily of the valley in here and there, and thought I had lost them all to slug attack, as they didn't really flower, just dwindled. But suddenly at an inch or two a day there are at least two in the back garden and the one in the front garden has become three!

...and a butterly fluttered by...

... A comma butterfly to be precise, which landed right in front of me in Hessenford wood this afternoon. The first one I've seen this year. And there have been other 'firsts' this week. In the Coombe the ramsons (wild garlic) are already coming into flower, although in Seaton Valley (and at Polkerris yesterday) there are still no flowers. I saw the first flower in the Coombe last Wednesday, and now there are hundreds. Although we have bluebells, daffodils, primroses, celandines and snowdrops locally, none of them do that English Heritage, home counties, picturesque carpet thing apart from the ramsons. In a couple of weeks the woods will be knee deep in white stars and wonderfully flavoursome. I always feel spring is really here when the garlic overpowers the cherry pie scent of the winter heliotrope. And yesterday, out on the cliffs the gorse, which has been flowering odourlessly all winter, was seriously into bee attraction mode with great dollops of coconut scented pollen.

I like this time of year. Every day something has changed, grown, burgeoned a little bit. One cannot but be optimistic...

Flowering things continued...

This morning's usual walk down the coombe to the shore and back revealed even more slightly unseasonal flowers and shrubs...

Forsythia - just a little bit early. Cherry pie flavoured winter heliotrope everywhere, of course, absolutely normal for the time of year. White periwinkle and (pink) red valerian. Hawkbit and cranesbill. Brambles both in the woods and up here by the steps, so we could theoretically be eating blackberries in March or thereabouts. Down on the shore there's an escallonia hedge in flower, and one of those bushes with flowers that look like prawns. In Joy's garden some bedraggled begonias and nicotanias are resolutely clinging to life.


Even in my house I find that an amaryllis which had been banished to the spare bedroom after flowering has suddenly developed a new flower spike, so it's been unbanished, and one of my cacti which normally flowers around Easter has a single Christmas flower. And I have just now remembered seeing field poppies in bloom at the top of the cliff (just outside the pub terrace) in Downderry a week last Sunday.