Heaven Scent

Flowering out in the garden today is our wild violet. They are on a gentle slope of rough limestony ground which the rabbits graze a bit. This image below shows them flowering with cowslips. It gives you an idea of the tiny scale of these ground hugging plants. The scent is completely out of proportion to their size. They outsmell all other plants in early spring. A siren call to any insects on the wing on sunny days.

In my kitchen this tiny bunch will scent the whole room for 24 hours.

I have noticed the pollen coming off the Yew trees in great clouds for the first time today. Hay Fever sufferers are often confused by their first attack at this time of year. The Yew tree may be the culprit. When the trees in the Yew Tunne really get going it looks like great clouds of smoke coming out of the centre.