Winterbourne House Again

 Since Mary had her heart transplant in 2003, we have made six-monthly trips (March & September) to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham for her regular check-ups. Apart from one instance, we have always caught the train to the University railway station which means an early start (7 am). Arriving at the QE Hospital around 8.30 to 9.00 in the morning, Mary is usually finished by midday.

Rather than return immediately to Hereford, we may venture into Birmingham itself or visit one of the attractions close to the University of Birmingham. Within walking distance of the hospital is the Barber Institute of Fine Arts (due to re-open in 2026), the Lapworth Museum of Geology, and Winterbourne House & Garden.

Despite the changeable weather and cold wind, we decided on a return trip to Winterbourne House even though it was only a year ago since our last visit. For some reason, we did not go to Winterbourne after Mary's autumn check-up in 2024 - we need to remedy that this coming autumn.

Photo 1: Wrapped Up Against the Cold Wing (Winterbourne, March 2025)

First stop was the cafe where we had soup of the day, bread roll and a pot of tea. The cafe was full so we sat outside, thankful for a little sunshine and a sheltered position that took the edge of the bitter wild. We were kept amused by the antics of a pair of corvids and a pair of robins.

Photo 2: Crow Enjoying His/her Lunch (Winterbourne, March 2025)

Photo 3: Inquisitive Robin (Winterbourne, March 2025)

A quick walk around the garden ...

Photo 4: Hazel Arch (Winterbourne, March 2025)

... with longer stays in the glasshouses ...

Photo 5: Succulents (Winterbourne, March 2025)

Photo 6: Succulents (Winterbourne, March 2025)

Photo 7: Orchid Glasshouse (Winterbourne, March 2025)

Photo 8: Fragrant bulbs (Winterbourne, March 2025)

Photo 9: Western Skunk Cabbage (Winterbourne, March 2025)

Photo 10: Spring Flowers in Terracotta Display (Winterbourne, March, 2024)

Photo 11: Coming Out of the Shadows

Our visit was 10 days earlier in Spring compared with 2024 and some of the flowers were less well developed. Just time for another cuppa and piece of cake but setting off for the railway station and the journey home.

Peat-Free Compost

Among a number of must-do initiatives to reverse the current global warming trend, the preservation and restoration of peatlands offers an easy win-win strategy. Peatlands (bogs, fens, mires, moors) sequester carbon dioxide and provide unique habitats for many plants and animals. Approximately 10% of the UK land area is peatland.

Peat has been the mainstay of UK horticulture since the 1930s when it was included in the formulation of John Innes composts. Peat itself contains very little in the way of plant nutrients but is an excellent base medium due to its water retention, pest-free and open structure characteristics. In 2010, about one million cubic metres were extracted every year in the UK just for horticultural use (two-thirds of which was used by amateur gardeners). A further two million cubic metres were imported just to satisfy the needs and desires for growing flowers and vegetables! The continued use of peat is unsustainable and destroying unique ecosystems.

Photo 1: Entrance to Fertile Fibre

Bagged peat-based compost sold has not been available in retail outlets (e.g. garden centres) since 2024. Professional/industrial users have until 2026 to phase out peat products with a few exceptions (e.g. growing mushrooms and bog plants). By 1930, peat use will not be allowed in the UK.

We have made a positive effort to be peat-free for at least 20 years though it is not always possible to completely avoid it; for example, when buying pot plants from a nursery/garden centre. Some of the early peat-free composts were, frankly, not very good. Finding a good peat-free seed compost was especially difficult.

For many years we have been using coir-based composts. And, in particular, those produced by Fertile Fibre, a local Herefordshire company just a few miles away. They offer the full range of composts (seed, multi-purpose and potting) including vegan and biodynamic options. In our experience, the coir-based composts are the best peat-substitutes for sowing seeds and potting on. Even our carnivorous pitcher and sundew plants, whose natural habitats are peatlands, do well in coir.

Yesterday, we paid our annual trip to Fertile Fibre to pick up supplies of bagged seed and potting compost along with coir blocks used to prepare the growing media for my Quadgrows and Veg/Salad Planters.

Photo 2: 5 Kg Coir Bales

Photo 3: 60L Bags of Seed & Potting Compost

I'll be spending a little more time in the kitchen garden and polytunnel from now on though it would be nice if the weather warmed up a little.

First Cutting of the Greensward 2025

 My next door neighbour has a small lawn (Photo 1) and kindly donates the grass clippings for my hot composting bins. In return, I take all his weeds, shrub and tree prunings. It saves time, money and carbon emissions, by avoiding the trip to the waste/recycling centre (a 5-mile round trip), and feeds my hungry hot composters! We do not have a lawn so fresh green grass mowings are always welcome.

Photo 1: Rear Garden with Neighbour's Lawn Marked

Photo 2 shows the first cut, about 15-20 litres of grass clippings, along with the woody prunings that are part of the deal ...

Photo 2: First Greensward Cut (2025)

This year, the first cut was on March 9th (i.e. the 68th day of the year). In my 2024 post on this topic, I looked at a number of factors (winter month temperatures, rainfall, sunshine hours and number of frosts) that might influence the timing of the first greensward mowing (phenology). Based on the last 6 years (2020 - 2025), average temperatures in December (Figure 1, R² = 0.83) and February (Figure 2, R² = 0.46) have the best predictive power for estimating the date of the first lawn trimming.

Figure 1: December Mean Temperature (℃) vs Day of the Year for the First Grass Cutting 

Figure 2: February Mean Temperature (℃) vs Day of the Year for the First Grass Cutting 

Presumably, January temperatures in this part of the world are close to the minimum growth temperature for grass (4 ℃ to 5 ℃) and therefore do not have a measurable impact. The importance of December and February temperatures is illustrated in the following graph (Figure 3) - a correlation (R² = 0.89) between the average December + February temperature and the first mow date. 

Figure 3: December/February Mean Temperature (℃) vs Day of the Year for the First Grass Cutting 

Note that the choice of date for the first mowing is subject to a number of influences unrelated to the overall winter weather. For example, has there been a period of dry weather prior to cutting and does my neighbour feel in the mood for mowing the lawn! Taking these external factors into account, the relationship shown in Figure 3 is better than I expected.

Wild about Daffodils

 This year's first fully open daffodil appeared in our garden on the 27th February. This was a little later than normal which did not bode well for the first Daffodil Weekend in the Golden Triangle on the Herefordshire/Gloucestershire border.

Fortunately, the recent period of sunny days meant the nature reserve known as Gwen & Vera's Fields provided a good display of these delicate wild daffodils. These two small wildflower meadows/orchards are examples of what used to be a common feature of the area around Newent.

Photo 1: Gwen & Vera's Field

Photo 2: Gwen & Vera's Field

Without the benefit of long sunny days, the display of golden daffodils was less impressive in Betty Daws Wood ...

Photo 3: Wild Daffodils in Betty Daw's Wood

On the plus side, the display should be even better next weekend (15th/16th March) when Kempley hosts the event. Last year's Daffodil Weekends took place later in March and were all the better for it.

St Mary's Church, Dymock has a permanent display about the Dymock Poets who resided and visited the area at the start of WWI (World War 1).

Which Season is Warming the Fastest?

 

Photo 1: Crocuses in the Garden (3rd March 2025)

This BBC article answered the titular question by declaring Spring to be the fastest warming season in the United Kingdom. They were reporting on a study by Climate Central which you can read here. Please refer to the BBC and Climate Central links for further information.

The graphic below was taken from the BBC article and shows how much the seasons have warmed, since 1970, for the whole of the UK. See the Climate Central post for a breakdown into England, Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland.

Figure 1: Mean UK Seasonal Temperature Changes since 1970

So, in order of increased warming, we have Winter, Summer, Autumn and Spring.

I thought it would be interesting to see whether these trends were repeated locally. Since the records from my Davis Weather Station cover too short a time to elicit any climatic change, I decided to use the data (1931 to date) from the nearest Met Office station at Ross-on-Wye.

Initially, I looked at the complete data set from 1931 - 2024 using the meteorological definition of the seasons: Spring (MAM), Summer (JJA), Autumn (SON) and Winter (DJF). The scatter plots for all fiur seasons are presented below (Figures 2 - 5). Note that all temperatures are in ℃ and the regression equations are shown in each figure.

Figure 2: Spring Temperatures in Ross-on-Wye (1931 - 2024)

Figure 3: Summer Temperatures in Ross-on-Wye (1931 - 2024)

Figure 4: Autumn Temperatures in Ross-on-Wye (1931 - 2024)

Figure 5: Winter Temperatures in Ross-on-Wye (1931 - 2024)

Interestingly, there is rather more scatter in the Winter plot compared with the other three seasons, possibly indicative of greater weather variability in the winter season. Nevertheless, there are discernible upward trends in temperature for all four seasons over the full 94 years of available data. I have summarised those trends in the following bar chart; the temperature change (y-axis) is the slope of the regression line multiplied by 100 (i.e. the expected change in temperature for a whole century of global warming).

Figure 6: Seasonal Warming Trends (℃/century) for Ross-on-Wye (1931-2024 data)

It should be noted that the seasonal order of warming (from lowest to highest) is Summer, Spring, Winter and Autumn. A very different order to the one reported in the BBC and Climate Central articles. There is, however, a very simple reason for this: the different timescales used in the Ross-on-Wye analysis (1931 - 2024) and the BBC/CC analysis (1970 - 2024). If I repeat the above exercise, but restrict the data analysis to the 1970 - 2024 period, then the bar chart looks like this ...

Figure 7: Seasonal Warming Trends (℃/century) for Ross-on-Wye (1970-2024 data)

... and the order of seasonal warming is Winter (lowest), Summer, Autumn and Spring (highest) as reported by the BBC/CC.

It is worth taking a second look at Figures 6 & 7 and particularly the temperature axes. Figure 7 infers a warming rate of approximately 3 ℃/century since 1970; in other words we're going 'to hell in a high  cart'. The warming rate (1.8 ℃/century) looks a little less scary (Figure 6) over the longer period (1931-2024) because it hides the absence of warming between 1931-1970 and the recent acceleration from 1970.

There is still time to avoid the worst case scenarios that global warming will bring but we desperately need to up our game.

Croome Visit

Croome is a National Trust property in Worcestershire that is just under an hour's drive away. 

Photo 1: The House at Croome

We arrived just after 11 o'clock in the morning on the 2nd March to find the 'Car Park Full' signs up. This is unusual but there were two reasons, one obvious and one less so. The unexpected factor was down to local precipitation rendering part of the car park waterlogged and therefore unusable. The more obvious reason was that the day of the week (Sunday) was really living up to its name. Indeed, it was the sunniest day of the 2025 so far - although the following day (3/3/25) turned out to be sunnier still!

Figure 1: Daily Solar Radiation Values for 2025

Fortunately, there was a steady dribble of visitors leaving so we did not have to wait long before being directed to our parking slot by the patient volunteers.

Croome's main feature is the wide open parkland (designed by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown) with its well-maintained paths. For this reason, it does attract a lot of dog walkers. The majority are well-behaved and the dogs are mostly on their best behaviour too.

The house (Croome Court, designed and furnished by Robert Adam) has some fine plaster work (walls and ceilings) but is largely devoid of furniture, sold after the second world war to pay off debts. From 1948 to 1979 it was a Roman Catholic School for boys and then, briefly, the headquarters of the Hare Krishna movement from 1979 to 1984. The house was a private home for a time (1999 - 2007) before being purchased by the Croome Heritage Trust and leased to the National Trust for 999 years. The National Trust had bought the grounds 1996. It is for these reasons that the house has not had the TLC it needed to maintain its structure and decor. The space left by the absence of furniture is sometimes used for exhibitions. We saw an impressive exhibition at Croome (in 2019) by Grayson Perry.

There are plenty of other buildings and features at Croome including RAF Defford (development of radar in the WWII), St Mary Magdalene' Church (Video 1), a walled garden (only open at certain times) and other outbuildings/follies (designed/built by Robert Adam and James Wyatt).

Video 1: Bells Ringing ay St Mary Magdalene's Church, Croome

Grab a map and plan your next visit! There is an excellent cafe at the main reception area (the curried cauliflower pasty is highly recommended) and a coffee bar in the house. Toilets at reception and the house and play areas for the children.

There are fine views to the Malverns ...

Photo 2: Croome Park with the Malvern Hills in the Background

Photo 3: Croome Court Viewed over the Lake

First Garden Daffodil of 2025

 On my daily visit to the compost bins, I passed Mary's mini-wood (approx. 2 metres by 2 metres) and spotted the first garden daffodil of the year today (27th Feb). This is two weeks later than 2024, possibly down to a very cold January this year.

Photo 1: First Daffodil Among the Snowdrops in Mary's Mini-Wood (27th Feb 2025)

The snowdrops are still in full bloom along with the crocuses ...

Photo 2: Spring Crocuses in the Fountain Garden (25th Feb 2025)

We've had daffodils in the house, of course, but these were forced and shop-bought. This lone flowering daffodil is the first to flower naturally in our garden this year (2025).

March is the time to visit and enjoy the wild daffodils of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. The villages of Dymock (8th/9th March 2025) and Kempley (15th/16th March 2025) both host Daffodil Weekends. I may do a report on this year's display in March.