winter daphne

My wife is perpetually busy with this and that so that she rarely reads my writings, unless something sparks her fears that I’ve written something about her. She is currently immersed in studies for a midlife career that will hold her over after I keel over dead at my desk one evening, so I’m quite…

The scent of the late winter garden

I have a terrible sniffer. I can barely discern all but the strongest scents, but this afternoon the garden was filled with sweet fragrances. The blooms of the vernal witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis, below) are beginning to fade after six weeks, but its scent was evident from halfway across the rear garden. Perhaps it would…