Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths

IN the part of the midlands where I live we had a late spring with low soil temperatures persisting for several weeks longer than normal.

This was followed by a period of drought in May when soil moisture levels were lower than usual. The result of this double whammy was that many spring and early summer plants were late to come into flower.

Then things warmed up and there were showers and some more prolonged spells of rain. Suddenly there was an explosion of growth when the wildflowers seemed to be scrambling to catch up, to make up for lost time. Right now many of the more natural meadows round here (as opposed to the silage fields) are not green. They are a shining, lustrous gold – totally taken over by flowering buttercups.