Despite the cold, things in the garden are quietly doing their stuff despite being a bit slower off the blocks that we normally see at this time of year. Our friends who live off the moor are already able to cut their grass although ours is not showing any signs of growing at all. There are things that are close to flowering, including this Berberis darwinii and the Skimmia too. The apple blossom is nowhere near blooming, neither are the Camellias and both would normally be showing signs now.

It’s only when you get “up close and personal” with plants that you notice the differences. The little things that show you that the plants around you are all alive and kicking. They are quietly sucking water and nutrients up from the soil, usually with the help of bacteria or fungi or both. They are stretching their leaves out to the sun and using its rays to turn the carbon dioxide they are breathing in into sugars, using the water they’ve sucked up through their roots and their intricate transport system that moves water from where they acquire it up into the leaves which are little sugar factories. The sugars that they make are the food of all of the rest of the life on Earth because even if you hate eating plants and vegetables you do eat the things that eat them.

What they want from the rest of the world for providing this fabulous service is help to reproduce. They even produce special sugary food to encourage other critters to help them. When these flowers unfurl in a few days’ time, they will be little cups of nectar that will feed many insects such as bees and any early butterflies. In return for the food, the insects pollinate the flowers so the plant can set seed.

Later in the summer, the seed will ripen and be covered in delicious fruits so that they are picked by birds (or people) and transported away from the parent plant so they stand the best chance of being able to grow.

The plants do it all quietly, without fuss, so that they can reproduce but along the way, they offer up food that means we all get to eat. Isn’t that something? Aren’t they also a delight to behold? It’s only a humble old Barberry but we have it, or many other things like it, to thank for being here. I’ve been outside for an hour, burning some of my own calories, cutting up logs and noticing what’s occurring. It’s good for the soul!