Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Friday 23rd April 1999
GARDENING PUTS YOU IN TOUCH with the great cycles of Nature. Which in my case includes slugs and chickens. I've been so preoccupied with setting up my exhibition, 'The Warren and the Web' that I failed to notice my vegetable seedlings have been all but wiped out by a few slugs that have found their way into the cold frame I've been using as a protection against both frosts and chickens.
It has been slug weather. Driving back from the museum, the atmosphere is so laden with moisture that, seen through the windows of the car, it puts me in mind of peering into an aquarium.
Cherry trees are laden with cool magenta blossom. Broad fields of oilseed rape glow through the predominant blue grey of a dull afternoon.
It is only at this time of year that our Beech hedge is devoid of leaves. Beech hedges retain their leaves throughout the winter, shedding them shortly before the sharply pointed leaf buds unfurl. If the same plant was allowed to grow into a tree it would loose its leaves in autumn.
GARDENING PUTS YOU IN TOUCH with the great cycles of Nature. Which in my case includes slugs and chickens. I've been so preoccupied with setting up my exhibition, 
It has been slug weather. Driving back from the museum, the atmosphere is so laden with moisture that, seen through the windows of the car, it puts me in mind of peering into an aquarium.
Cherry trees are laden with cool magenta blossom. Broad fields of oilseed rape glow through the predominant blue grey of a dull afternoon.
It is only at this time of year that our Beech hedge is devoid of leaves. Beech hedges retain their leaves throughout the winter, shedding them shortly before the sharply pointed leaf buds unfurl. If the same plant was allowed to grow into a tree it would loose its leaves in autumn.