There are half a dozen walks in the Montalto grounds where I regularly spend time. These routes, allied to a ‘wander-where-you-will’ approach, lead me to stumble across a variety of plants, shrubs and weeds.
Near the entrance to the estate and in surrounding gardens, the pink cherry blossom has scattered its confetti-like petals on the ground. The annual regeneration of the woodland is a heart-warming sight bringing colour and vitality, and the season of procreation is underway with a sense of optimism. Shoots and tendrils are pushing through the soil and include dog roses and primroses.
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In Irish folklore, primroses were placed on the doorstep to encourage fairies to bless and protect the house and those who lived in it, and the demise of the flower offended the Sidhe or fairy folk.
Bright yellow trumpets of daffodils crop up. They used to be referred to as ‘daffadowndilly’ and in Victorian times in Donegal their nickname was ‘Tags’. When I see them, I am reminded of Ted Hughes’s lines from Spring Nature Notes: “A spurt of daffodils, stiff, quivering – / Plumes, blades, creases, Guardsmen / At attention / Like sentinels at the tomb of a great queen.”
Alongside daffodils, wood sorrel, with its pure white lilac veined flowers above bright-green clover-shaped leaves, is producing its first flush.
Vigorous nodding clumps of the delicate star-shaped wood anemones, which I christen ‘wooden enemies’, are certainly not enemies of a woodland, bringing agreeable tinges of pink, yellow and white to the floor. In romantic legends the wood anemone stars as a love flower, and ancient Greeks knew it as the ‘wind-flower’.
Daisies, or ‘day’s eyes’, have taken over sections of the front lawn sparkling in the sunshine, while another corner of greenery is the preserve of shiny yellow buttercups, traditional harbingers of spring, heralding warmer weather on the way.
I find marsh marigold, also dubbed kingcups, and closer to the lake, the delicate, pale-pink lady’s smock cuckoo flower, which likes damp meadows and grassy patches.
The floral domination comes through the appearance of large swathes of floppy bluebells scenting the air. The result is an immense smoky shimmer spread across parts of the woodland, hiding the ground with their intoxicatingly dark cobalt.
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In one heavily coated area, just off the main avenue, thousands of Hyacinthoides non-scripta (Latin for ‘not written on’) have taken over the undisturbed forest floor. It is difficult to make out where the flowers end, as they seem to vanish into the far distance in a hypnotic haze.
A local name for bluebells in parts of Ireland is ‘wild hyacinth’, while in other parts of the country they are sometimes called ‘blue rockets’, and in Donegal ‘crowpickers’ or ‘bummicks’.
With their floppy, elongated stems and thin load-bearing stalk, bluebells are the most spectacular of flowers, since they face in a single direction. I crouch down and catch their sweet smell being released from the soft soil. The bluebell is also regarded as a flower of loss or an embodiment of sorrow. In Fishing for Amber, Ciaran Carson described them concisely: “The bluebell, flower of mourning, tolls quietly in the dark woods.”
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On a late April morning of claritas – Latin for clarity and brightness – the throb of mowers reverberating around the lake is another quintessential sign of spring beginning in earnest, when the gardeners start cutting the large lawn. As the energetic work gets underway, birds disappear because of the racket.
The smell of freshly cut grass comes from a combination of chemicals and pheromones, known as green leaf volatiles. There is an obvious appeal to butterflies and bugs, which are inspecting the work when it is completed, attracted by the musty smell of clippings, mixed with a lingering hint of ammonia and the pungent ingredient of petrol.
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Overall though, it appeals to my senses, as a freshness wafts on the air. The sight and smell of a lawn with symmetrical football-pitch-type stripes is linked to brighter and warmer days, with the optimism of more to come; I remain eternally grateful that I am not in charge of the extensive cutting operation.
The grass is appliquéd with buttercups and primroses, but in their wild abundance, humble dandelions steal the show. Taraxacum officinale – known as the living sun – are hardy plants that pop up everywhere and at odd angles in twos and threes. A few have a stumpy look, having fallen over as if resting, while those with a longer stem lean at angles.
On closer inspection, I notice a mutation, with several two-headed dandelions compressed together, known as a fasciation or cresting. A bitter prejudice is held against dandelions by gardeners, who classify them as weeds and dislike their blooming on sprucely manicured lawns. They do not seem to bother those working here, but despite the scorn of the Montalto mowers they remain undimmed.
Those championing the downtrodden dandelion believe it should be the national flower of Ireland, a position long held by the shamrock. Few poets have extolled the flower’s virtue, but in Spraying the Potatoes, Patrick Kavanagh refers to “Dandelions growing on headlands, showing / Their unloved hearts to everyone.”
As children we used to blow the fluffy flower’s seed-heads, imagining we were telling the time. The number of puffs it took to remove all the seeds or disperse them in the wind was said to equal the hour of the day, which is why it was nicknamed the dandelion clock. In certain areas the dandelion is known as ‘Jack-piss-the-bed’, coming from the myth that even touching the plant will make you wet your bed.
From A Year in the Woods: Montalto through the Seasons by Paul Clements, published in hardback by Merrion Press, £17.99