Now winter seems to have passed and we are getting some sunny February days. The corona virus pandemic seems to be receding too, so spirits are rising. Today I re-found the two older dandelion plants I spent so much time enjoying last year. They have been hidden under fallen leaves and worm casts for months. They are currently quite small with very narrow leaves, each from a single rosette, but they look healthy enough.
I have a view down the garden from my new position at the desktop on the table. The 18-year-old birch tree that grows in the south west corner of the Square Metre is tall enough to see it from my room. The picture above shows it behind one of our juniper bushes during the recent cold and snowy weather.
Ivy is starting to climb the lower part of the trunk of the birch and, I suppose, will one day overwhelm it. The ivy leaders all start on the rough black bark and mostly remain on this as high as it goes when they move on to the much smoother white bark. They seem to be able to cling tightly to either substrate without any difficulty and it makes me wonder, if it is not coincidence, how the ivy selects the black rather than the white.
