All bets are off for forecasters in the unpredictable month of March

“March: many weathers”. When it came to forecasting the weather for this month, our ancestors certainly knew how to hedge their bets.
Perhaps they had a point. For March can be one of the most variable and unpredictable months of the whole year, weatherwise.
We can experience freezing conditions (as in 1962, 1963 and in the very cold March of 2013), or warm, spring-like weather, as we saw in 2014, when the contrast with 12 months earlier could hardly have been greater.
We know to expect March winds – especially at the beginning of the month – for as the old saying goes: “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb”.
But frost and fog are also frequent, as are regular falls of snow, especially in northern Britain.
Our ancestors welcomed thunder in March, as it is supposed to lead to a fruitful harvest. At least that’s the opinion of the Germans.
However, the French and Portuguese beg to differ, suggesting that thunder will only bring sorrow for the rest of the year. One saying is especially relevant now that we are experiencing earlier and earlier springs.
“March flowers make no summer bowers” points out that the earlier the flowering season, the fewer flowers will appear later in the summer.
In fact the two are not necessarily connected, as what happens between now and July or August will have a far greater effect than the weather of this particular month.

Spring flowers reveal their true selves in extreme close-up – in pictures

Flowers are one of the great joys of spring, but viewing them under a scanning electron microscope uncovers a surreal, alien beauty. These images were created by the award-winning German microscopy team Eye of Science, comprising photographer Oliver Meckes and biologist Nicole Ottawa

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  A primula petal

A rapeseed flower petal

The stamens of a hibiscus flower

Four grains of lilac pollen

 

A valerian flower

The stigma of an arnica flower

The anther of a small-leaved lime flower

A rapeseed flower petal

 

Pollen grains (grey) on the stigma (yellow) of an arnica flower

The beauty of the blossom

It's a big tree, but you barely notice it. All winter, you take it for granted. Then spring comes, and the tree is covered in dark pink cherry blossom. Ignore me now, it seems to say. Overlook this, if you can. It fills the tiny garden in which it is growing, as dominant as it is delicate.
Cherry trees are the conceptual artists of the botanical world. Christo wrapped the Pont Neuf in gold fabric. Eliasson installed a convincing artificial sun in the Tate Modern's turbine hall. The effect of a cherry tree in sudden and abundant bloom is similarly arresting. Overnight, the drabbest suburban streets are transformed by these magnificent flowering trees, which are magically at odds with their setting, and so beautiful as to be almost absurd. No wonder the Japanese celebrate them, hold picnics beneath their branches and forecast the arrival of the blossom, like weather, as waves of pink and white flowers progress northwards through the country.
There is beauty in a single blossom, a lone tree, or in a row of trees – a cherry orchard. Their effect and aesthetic can vary depending on the colour of the blossom – from white through to deepest pink – and on the shape of the tree, with the weeping cherry being particularly lovely. For all its famous delicacy, there can be something robust about the sheer depth and quantity of blossom, the weight and abundance of flowers.
And at the heart of it all is transience. It will last a week, this spectacle, no more than that. The gutters on the streets will be full of pink petals and the branches will be bare again. The petals will decay and the trees themselves will become unremarkable and will once more be taken for granted. And the trees themselves will no longer be so evident to us. All things must pass. Enjoy it while it lasts.

National Trust aims to make orchard festival a blossoming success

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Japanese cherry blossom. Photograph: Dan Chung

In Japan, tracking the cherry blossom is a national obsession, while in the US pilgrims hunt for the brightest shows of autumnal colours.
Today the National Trust is revealing the British version: a festival to celebrate fruit tree blossom as it sweeps across the country.
Springtime may still feel a long way off, but the Trust is hoping to cheer people up with its Full Bloom project. Nature lovers will be encouraged to visit orchards as they come into bloom and send in images of what they find.
The festival will start in Cornwall's Tamar Valley, home of the Trust's mother orchard, in April. Planted in 2007, the mother orchard consists of 270 trees with 120 varieties typical to Cornwall and Devon, growing on an eight-acre plot. The idea is to grow these trees to adulthood to make sure they are not lost, and then create more trees from them and reintroduce the rare ones to orchards and gardens.
Some of the varieties here were down to their last few trees; others with glorious names like the Pig's Snout were thought to be extinct but were found hiding away in the corner of kitchen gardens.
The focus of the festival will shift northwards, ending in May at Acorn Bank in Cumbria, which has a formal orchard within a walled garden and a large perry pear orchard.
As well as Cotehele and Acorn Bank, the Trust has spectacular orchards as far afield as Somerset, Kent and the Midlands but it is also involving groups such as the Common Ground campaigners, which has long fought for the future of orchards, and the increasing number of groups who are creating new community orchards.
Conservationists hope the blossom festival will also raise attention to the dire plight of the orchard in some regions. Last harvest-time environmental experts and campaigners warned traditional orchards could vanish from the British landscape by the end of the century unless action is taken to save them.
Natural England and the National Trust claimed 60% of England's orchards had disappeared since the 1950s, as they launched a £500,000 project aimed at halting the decline. The crisis has been even worse in some areas, such as Devon, which has lost almost 90% of its orchards.
In Japan the progress of the cherry blossom makes nightly television news. Merry knows the Trust's answer is unlikely to attract such attention, but "with all this wintery weather around, it's something to look forward to", she said.