Never mind showing off your snowdrops or remarking on the ready-to-flower crocuses: what do you think about the first primrose of the year spotted just a week ago by a landscaper friend? Not in full bloom, but there it was in the ditch along the road from Navan to Athboy. He even named the townland. Then there is the other friend who chirps that the mimosa in his, admittedly sheltered, garden has just got its first few blossoms, lovely yellow balls of flowers which remind you of the Mediterranean and sun. It may be old news to people down south, say in Cork, but this is Dublin.
As to saffron crocuses, brought last year from Saffron Walden, old Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1674) speaks well of the condiment taken in moderate doses, but overdosing can be fatal. "Some have fallen into an immoderate convulsive laughter, which ended in death." Still on the positive side, however, are chives in a pot outside the back door, which already have been throwing up lovely, light-green healthy shoots, and are, of course being used. Normally this resurgence comes later. The pot stands under a bright halogen light, which may give it heat as well as light all night.
Now for the unlovely plants, the first and most bothersome being cleevers, cleavers or goose-grass, whatever you like to call it. It is everywhere, already, in some cases four to six inches high. How do you deal with it? Spray? No, there is no spraying here except of roses, effective though that could be with cleevers. Massive doses over a wide area would be needed - and near the river. No. It is just preparing to climb up every bit of sheepwire around the borders, to pounce on young trees (later in the season) and, if not checked, to weigh them down to the ground. So you get at it with the weed-eater, but find that the slower working-over with the four-pronged graip is more effective. A long job. And you still see the remains of last year's phenomenal growth, in yellow curtains of the dried weed along the wire.
Finally, among the baddies, what does one do with bindweed or convolvulus? Especially when one half of the family claims that the flower is the loveliest of all, large and white, covering at times, perhaps a quarteracre. In small areas, like herb-beds, you hoke out the roots; in an expanse of untamed boggy land, you just let it rip. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.