For the first year since we have been here the cow parsley on the lane has stood standing on both sides. Previously the neighbouring farmer, who has the fields to the other side of the lane, has cut it on his side just after it starts flowering in the belief that it taints the milk. A sign of the times this year has been marked by this spring phenomenon having its liberty, for he has now converted to beef cattle. For the first time the lanes are unbroken, their lifeline spilling from the banks and continuously along the verges. 

I enjoy the lacing of the lanes and the shadowy parts of our meadows where the cow parsley thrives, but I am not brave enough, as Fergus Garrett is at Great Dixter, to let it venture into the garden. At least not in its wild form, but I have invited the liquorice-leaved Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’ into the beds where it is brilliant for rising up early and covering for a discernible gap between spring and summer. The couple of weeks before and then during the Chelsea Flower Show when we suddenly find spring racing and then tipping into summer.