This post should come with a warning perhaps: It is a deeply personal piece and will have little to do with plants. And while I usually try to write positively, or at least give my posts a positive spin to make them a little uplifting, I’m not sure I’ll manage this time.

As I write, the sun shines from a clear blue sky, the birds tweet like mad, it’s warm enough to sit short-sleeved on the roof terrace, the forecast having promised temperatures of up to 18 degrees Celsius: everything screams SPRING. Yet it is only mid-February, today is the last day of school before the winter break and children here would normally expect (or at least hope for) frost and snow. Indeed, there are bits left over from a snow storm less than two weeks ago that was heavy enough to ground planes for a day at our local airport.  It’s truly weird – and so are my feelings about it. On the one hand I long for nothing more than the return of the sun, warmer days, flowers and green, the return of life. On the other I don’t feel ready for it just yet. It just doesn’t feel appropriate – and that, for me, is only in a very small way linked to the time of year.

There was an early bee humming next to me, gathering nectar in the collapsed and shrivelled Helleborus niger flowers growing in some of my pots. No idea why they have collapsed; maybe for a lack of water at some point – or perhaps because of too much moisture when the frost hit? In any case, they are a very sorry sight indeed and I took pity on the bee. Yet it would accept neither the tulip flowers in a vase, nor the highly fragrant white flowers of the Sarcoccoca confusa which I brought from its winter quarters in order to offer the poor insect something fresh! It much preferred the Helleborus. The bee on the dead flowers seems an apt metaphor for my own situation. This winter has been horrible, and I’m not talking about the weather.

Several personal crises have converged over the past months, some long-running, some more recent. The move back to Germany last summer has contributed, not least as I’ve lost not only my own beloved garden but also immediate access to Kew, always a source of comfort, and the network of people and friends for everyday moral support I had in London. You know, the heart-to-heart over a shared coffee, the chat with other mums in the playground whilst the children are running around… The situation with Brexit hasn't helped either. At the end of 2018, I mentally hit rock bottom.

                                              The cat in the bag, the tree in the net...

While usually I’m a sucker for Christmas, this – last – year for various reasons I was dreading it. To the point of not really wanting or caring to have a Christmas tree. For the first time ever in my life I felt that indeed this was just grooming and dressing a dead horse. It did not seem to represent the anticipation, the joy of Christmas with its lights but something dead: dolled up, but still dead and sad. In the end, however, the children and I went out to buy one. Poignantly perhaps, when we got to the yard where over the last few weeks I had seen the Christmas tree sale, everything was dark and deserted.

Now, unlike in Britain many people in Germany will not put up the tree before actual Christmas, with Christmas Eve morning being the time to decorate it as this is the big and main day for us. So a week before that did not really seem too late to be buying a tree. Yet when I asked the lady at the till in the small petrol station nextdoor, she confirmed that indeed the sale here was over for this year. However, there were a few left-over trees the seller had left, readily netted for transport, leaning against the wall of the yard with bits of paper attached that told the suggested price people should pay for them and leave with her at the petrol station, for the seller to collect later. She assured me that the trees, grown regionally, were usually well-shaped and since I didn’t have much of an option (i.e. no car and no other point of sale anywhere nearby – this was just a tram stop from our place) we bought the cat in the bag, or more precisely the Christmas tree in the net.

Unlike other years, it was not a Nordmann fir (Abies nordmanniana) but a Blue Spruce (Picea pungens) and as I was lugging the 2.50 m tree home – the kids helping to carry it at the sawn-off end and the tip – it felt more like I was hugging a cactus, the needles sharp and stiff like a hedgehog’s spines. We got it home and upstairs and put it outside on the roof terrace of our flat for the remaining days. I didn’t see it as an omen but neither did it lift the mood when three days later in high winds and torrential rain the tree was toppled and fell – without much damage – despite being sheltered in the roof’s recess and screwed tight into the tree stand.
        
                                           Not in Christmas spirits...

The next two days Dad was entirely bed-bound. He said he wanted to make it into the next year, not sounding confident that he would. Pain and panic attacks during the choking fits that had plagued him for months had left him wishing for a quick and quiet death – he’d confessed to me a few times before: “If there was a button I could push to end this all, I definitely would” – yet human nature clings to life and the unknown scares us.

As he lay there, he had a good view of and much enjoyed the Malvaviscus arboreus in flower on the window sill. It’s a plant he loved, draping even the spent blooms over foliage indoor plants below, so as to savour their bright red a little longer. Dad said he didn’t remember it ever to flower so profusely before. I was glad I could remind him that the plant came from a cutting I had taken a good fifteen years ago on a joint holiday to Madeira – meaning more happy memories to share.

On New Year’s Eve he wanted to rest at night but asked us to come just before the clock would strike Twelve. We did. My mum, sister and I with a glass of Sekt (German version of Champagne), a glass of homemade elderflower lemonade for my dad. And still he couldn’t take more than a sip before he started to retch again as he had done for much of the previous days. So the four of us sat there, quietly in the dark, one of us either side of him to help him sit upright in bed, watching what fireworks we could see through the window (crazy numbers of private fireworks blasted in the sky being the German way to welcome in the new year).

I don’t know how my dad felt about it – on one level he was clearly glad he had made it, against his fear and a doctor’s prediction, into the new year and seemed to enjoy the spectacle. On the other hand he must have known it was to be his last. Despite irrational hopes – hope is the last thing that dies, they say – deep down we all knew. So sadness and a heavy heart dominated even though we tried to hide it. “Next stage goal is your 80th birthday!” I said, trying to sound cheerful. But I guess he already knew he wasn’t going to make it that far.

Still, the milestone of making it into the new year must have given him a boost for on New Year’s Day he got up and dressed again and even had lunch with us – a tiny portion only, but it was real food rather than the somewhat slimy soup made of flour which had been the only thing he’d occasionally kept down during the last few days.

It didn’t last long though. And when I had to say Good-bye and leave the next day, it was total agony as I felt very strongly that it might be our final farewell.

It was. The next time I saw him, he was already dead. He had died a few minutes before I reached him.

                        
                          Snowdrops give comfort while Sansevieria meets antipathy

Still, after much suffering throughout January we were extremely grateful that the strong painkillers and sedatives which he had been given after a day of choking fits that came every three minutes meant he died peacefully in the end, something we had hardly dared to hope anymore. I also drew a strange, if tiny, sense of comfort from detecting the first snowdrops in bloom as I arrived: at least he didn’t die in the depth and gloom of midwinter! Nature was no longer “all dead” but showed the first visible signs of its “resurrection”. Surely that was an omen?

I know this is mean of me, but I have to admit that the sight of a Sansevieria trifasciata 'Hahnii' on the other hand repulsed me. It had been a gift to my Dad when he had passed his PhD exam, well before I was born thus I have known it all my life. The idea, however, that this plant which I've never liked since it had never seemed truly alive, never had changed in any visible way, would survive him was simply too much.

However, the most poignant thing to me was the following: Dad’s biggest favourite among the house plants was a Hibiscus schizopetalus, grown with tender loving care from another cutting I had given them years ago. He adored its intricate flowers, marvelled at their lace-like delicacy and shape. Unlike my own though, my parents’ plant sadly flowered very rarely indeed. I suspect it was down to a lack of nutrients in the small pot it had to be confined to and perhaps the pruning, too – both due to the limited space available and yet a desire on my parents’ part to keep this particular favourite.

During Dad’s last few weeks, as he was entirely bed-bound, my mum told him that a bud had formed on their plant and he asked her to take a picture when it would flower and show it to him. When the bud eventually did open, my sister lugged the pot from the living room to his bed instead so he could see the real thing. But, she told me, she wasn’t sure he actually still noticed it.

My own plant meanwhile had fared really badly in December and then again around the end of January: suddenly dropping great numbers of leaves without apparent cause, whole branches dying whilst others remained fairly unscathed. I had – and have – no explanation for it, but was alarmed and very concerned. It seems even stranger then that after months, perhaps even two years with no flower my parents’ Hibiscus schizopetalus by contrast bore another bud. Hibiscus blooms last only one day: the second bud flowered the day my dad died... It was Candlemas, once considered the last day of the Christmas season.

Weather is a weird thing. April is notoriously changeable, of course, but still... We went to visit family in Germany over the recent holidays. Calling my parents ahead on Easter Monday, I was told: "We've had 24 hours of snowfall yesterday, there are 30 - 35 cm of snow on the ground. But I don't think you'll need to pack woollen hats and gloves. In any case I have some spare ones." Okay, but jumpers and our coats were a must.

Being someone who prefers to pack rather a bit too much than too little in order to be prepared for all eventualities, I pondered whether to take short-sleeved T-shirts? It was unlikely to stay frosty for long, but we were only at the start of April. In the end, I decided to bring one for each of us: we could always layer it underneath something warmer.

Arriving the next day, we had a snow fight though thawing had reduced the cover considerably. Then the day after, temperatures went up to 20 degrees Celsius - and stayed there for the rest of the holidays, rising even further to 25 degrees a few days later. Obviously, the jumpers and coats did not get so much as a side-way glance, but the T-shirts were washed regularly at night. It's the first time I've been so completely caught out, longing for some shorts, dresses or light-weight trousers and some open shoes. It drove home to me just how drastically the continental weather can change, how quickly it swings from winter to summer - and how much plants there have to cope with.

 Here in Britain you do have temperature swings, too, but rarely that abrupt. Mostly it hoovers around a mean temperature, deviating either side of course, but not in such a topsy-turvy way. Or so I thought. For while I write this, we've just had the hottest April Day in Britain in almost 70 years according to the news, reaching 29.1 degrees Celsius in inner London. And that after what was described to us as a chilly, wet and generally miserable Easter school break. Reports must be true because while I had worried for my plants in pots which dry out quickly when the sun is out and temperatures soar, left alone after a good soaking these were still moist enough at my return a week later to delay watering again and tend to the inevitable mountain of laundry first!

Four days on, it feels like the height of summer. The birds are going mad by the sound of it, butterflies seem to materialize out of blue air (I was going to say “thin air” but this deep forget-me-not blue sky cannot be called “thin” by any stretch of the imagination). Plants seem to explode. The dam is broken and a flood of green surges everywhere you cast your eye. All that energy, delayed and held back in bud, penned up so long out of chilly necessity by the unusually long wintery weather, has burst forth and you can almost literally watch them grow by the hour.  Where there was bare ground two days ago now is carpeted in green.

After daffodils, hyacinths and other spring flowers literally lasted for months, cherry blossom, magnolias and many tulips now have come and either already are gone or are in that blowsy state that indicates they'll be past it in a matter of days, if not hours, rather than weeks. The horse chestnut trees, a few days ago still mostly in that felt-like silver-beige of unfurling new shoots and only showing hints of green, are in full leaf cover, their candles fully-grown with the first flowers already open. It's incredible, surprising me anew every year no matter how many times I've witnessed it before. It could be late May.

I’ve often wondered: if it remained chilly until even later in the year – would plants still hold back? Or would there come a point where it was impossible to contain new growth in buds? Just as you can hold back from going to the toilet only for so long before you “burst”. Not the most appealing metaphor, of course, especially since, unlike any such accident, fresh young green is such a welcome, uplifting sight. But you get the point. And for the plant it might have more drastic consequences than “embarrassment”. Any return of frost could kill the new growth.

This happens, of course, much to any gardener’s chagrin in many a spring when a late frost destroys your hope of blossom or a good fruit crop or sees off your plants altogether if you were too optimistic and planted out too early. But these late frosts are “accidents”, so to speak. A plant tricked into growth by a previous period of favourable weather and conditions could not have “anticipated” this turn of events. And very rarely will these kill the entire plant. They might see off the first shoots or this year’s blossom but most perennial plants (including the woody ones) will eventually recover and continue to live. And annuals will only germinate once the soil temperature has risen to a certain level and stayed there for considerable time. No, if these late frosts really kill a plant, it’s usually your fault for planting out too early and/ or not protecting them.

But what if, like this year, it remained chilly throughout? And not just into late March and April but into June, say? Would trees and shrubs remain more or less bare until then? Would bulbs and perennials - safe those of early spring - hold back below ground? Or would their natural annual rhythm dictate that at some point, when it is perhaps past their normal flowering time already, they have to burst forth? While you could argue that such chilly “spring” would be like keeping plants in a fridge, the rise of the sun to a higher position in the sky and increased light levels would differ from fridge conditions, even if its warmth were not felt on the ground. Well - I guess this is a theoretical question, of no practical merit.