Mixed up March

We expect March to be a bit different,  it's the end of winter and the start of Spring and the weather can be very strange.....but we've gone from summer to winter,  summer to winter and now summer again!   Or should that be winter to summer.....winter to summer?
Anyway,  2 weeks ago we had some horrible weather......


19th March,  the first 'ice plant' flower was about to open,

20th March,  we had thunder, rain and hail which it didn't like,

hail on the ground, still there a few hours later.

23rd March it's struggling to recover,

plus lots of blossom knocked off and complete heads broken off some flowers,  including the iris which are pretty sturdy plants.

March 25th - howling gales!  The wind picked up  during the afternoon,  we had a horrendous evening and night with the wind howling around the house,  and we spent most of the next day sweeping,  raking,  repairing plants, re-staking, .... it took most of the day to get back to where we'd been the day before.  I'm not sure that the broad beans will ever recover,  they look like a giant hand has smashed down into the middle of them and a lot of them have broken stalks.  But they are very resilient,  and do  keep on growing, so there may be some life there yet.

March 29th - a sad scruffy looking flower

But now we have wall to wall sunshine,  6 flowers on the ice plant,  shade temperatures of 25 degrees, but higher on the coast.  On a forum that I read, someone said although the clocks have gone forward by 1 hour,  it's as if the month has gone forward as well.

As I write this it is 21 degrees in and out,  windows wide open,  crickets chirping madly in the olive trees,  does this mean we are in for a super-hot summer or is it just a blip?  The writer on the forum I mentioned said it's the hottest week in March in the 12 years that  he's been here.

Time,  as they say,  will tell.


And finally, isn't this the most perfect Iris?  Before the wind, rain and hail that is!!