And suddenly the snow melts, and spring begins in Week 2010/11. With the last piles of shovelled snow still standing after the three-month whiteover of the 2009-2010 winter, the crocuses are up, the white "snowbells" are about to open, the wonderful yellow Eranthis hyemalis are forming a carpet in a neighbour's garden (top) and the Hamamelis rushes into blossom in six bare days (bottom).
The mauve crocus seems to be the the most stubborn of these early bloomers: it grew (from seed?) in a ploughed-over bed, sending up shoots 5-centimetre within two days of the snow briefly melting in 2010/09, and surviving a dumping with 25 centimetres of fresh snow two days later.
