First spring flowers

First flowering of cowslip today. These were grown from seed in individual plug pots and planted out in the autumn. The seed needs to be sown as soon as it is ripe in the summer in order for the plug plants to get big enough to withstand the winter. I keep a few each year in pots which then produce the seed for the next year's plants. Slowly I am spreading them across the meadow.

The first leaves of the Comfrey are sprouting. I grew these from cuttings - just a leaf taken with the join to the stem or a shooting tip, which I put in a small jar of water for a couple of weeks until the first small roots had grown, the planted into a pot. This worked to some extent, but I had more success with planting the cuttings straight into a pot and putting it in standing water for a couple of weeks. I guess that this allowed the roots to grow without the disturbance of planting out.

Each year the old leaves die down and fall flat on the ground forming a dense ring around the planet which prevents anything else growing in competition. An excellent way of getting rid of the opposition in a rough grassland.

Also today the Selfheal is out in flower for the first time. Small Tortoiseshell butterflies were already fighting over territory - the first butterflies seen this spring.