After the excitement of the last lamb of the season arriving on the same morning that the BBC Gardener’s World crew came to film me and the daffodils on the last day of March, April continued with similar glorious weather, albeit a little windier at times.

For 2 weeks we enjoyed cloudless skies and drying fields. The first swallow arrived early this year, on April 6th.

And when our youngest son and his family arrived, for a short holiday with us, for once we had sunny dry weather for 3 days and an early Easter egg hunt was laid and completed in the dry.

Several of the younger children also got hooked on being around at feeding time for the ewes and lambs, who had been the real stars of the TV programme, once we got to watch it when it was aired on Good Friday, April 18th. The 4 person crew of Kath, Gary, Gary and Jess, and their editors back at base did a wonderful job of crafting an interesting short section featuring not only a little bit about daffodils, but also a nod to our longer history living here, and of course the ewes and lambs who, particularly at this time of the year, are a always a major focus of our attention.

The other wonderful aspect of this spring has been the fabulous bird song, together with still weather to record it with clarity. On the morning of the 12th, I filmed/recorded this blackbird song, with the camera just inside our front door.

The day before I heard this, Lewis, one of our twin ram lambs had a sudden onset mystery illness which we feared would mean he didn’t survive. In the end he made it.

Just as we were beginning to worry about water supplies, we enjoyed nearly a week of wetter weather which restored our stream flow, freshened up the garden and meadows and removed any water supply worries for now.

The daffodils held on in numbers, since despite the sunshine, this hasn’t been a spring with much in the way of hot weather. So for our next garden opening weekend, timed for Easter (19th/20th) our many visitors enjoyed some wonderful scenes, and the weather picked up once more, with rain staying away on the Saturday and becoming gloriously sunny on the Sunday. As is usually my way, I spent a bit of preparatory time picking flowers for our table bowls:

All the sunshine meant it was a great month for dark-edged bee-fly, Bombylius major, and Orange-tip butterfly, Anthocharis cardamines, sightings:

The fact that we now have lots of cuckoo flower/Lady’s smock, Cardamine pratensis, (above) now growing all around the property (a larval food plant for the butterfly) should ensure it enjoys great egg laying success this year. I also discovered that they’re the only British butterfly which is happy to rest out in the open. The female below survived at least 36 hours and over an inch of rain in this position before I could photograph it.

We spotted first Holly Blue butterflies and this new species for Gelli Uchaf – a form of club horned sawfly, possibly Abia sericea, photographed just above our enormous honeysuckle covered bank and honeysuckle ‘hedge’ – which is this species’ larval foodplant.

After an amazing pollination event of the ‘Tomcot’ apricots in early March by our resident honey bees, it took me over 3 hours to thin the fruit out this month:

With all this behind us and after two months of what seemed like non-stop activity, we finally felt we could slot back into something more relaxed with some gentle catch-up ‘pottering’ gardening – weeding, late deadheading of Hydrangeas. And lifting and moving some more snowdrops and daffodils.

As the month moved into its last week, there are still a few daffodils with flowers only just emerging, and as the main display in the Malus/Sorbus copse begins to fade for another year, I can begin to plan where I’m going to move this year’s new bulbs, which have been sitting in a deep trial bed. And order a few more new ones to be planted this autumn. This is the sort of attritional approach we have – for cost and physical limitation reasons, chipping away, adding gradually, and expecting ‘the whole’ to improve year on year.

It’s with a tinge of regret that one says goodbye to the daffodils for another year, but the many crab apple trees in this area are just beginning to burst their flower buds, as ever more flowers emerge throughout the garden.

What a difference a year makes! Last spring it seemed constantly wet and grey. This year has been a delight, with a March and April to remember.

And the month ended with even more sunny days, and temperatures rising into the twenties at last. The Malus and apple blossom was better than I can ever remember, as the last daffodils emerged.

The month finished with another glorious sunny day, after a misty start which was made even more special for me after I nipped out very early at 5.10 am for a pee and heard the first single loud and close cuckoo of the year, swiftly followed by a very bright and clear pass directly overhead by the International Space Station.

The Met Office summary for April confirmed just how special the month has been, (the sunniest on record for the UK as a whole) and a complete contrast to last year. No wonder the garden has looked so beautiful – masses of sunshine and enough rain falling in the third week to revive everything.

Here’s the sequence for Aprils since 2014 when I’ve been recording rainfall and light levels using our PV inverter data, with maximum and minimum readings highlighted:

2014: 136.9mm, 13 dry days  – N/A

2015: 34mm, 22 dry days, PV – 519 KWH

2016: 108mm, 9 dry days, PV – 394 KWH

2017: 47mm, 20 dry days, PV – 410 KWH

2018: 158mm, 14 dry days, PV – 346 KWH

2019: 94mm, 14 dry days, PV – 416KWH

2020: 50mm, 22 dry days, PV – 498 KWH

2021: 19mm, 20 dry days, PV – 522 KWH

2022: 53mm, 16 dry days, PV – 420 KWH

2023: 111mm, 12 dry days, PV  – 393 KWH.

2024:  225 mm, 8 dry days, PV  – 299.7 KWH – a record high, a record low!

2025: 118.8 mm. 18 dry days, PV – 488.9 KWH inverter output.