It was very good to be back at Moorbank again this week, reassuringly unchanged despite its uncertain status. Newcastle University’s support will come to an end on 30th November this year. A detailed Feasibility Study has been submitted to the landlords, the Freemen of the City, and we are currently awaiting their response.
Meanwhile work continues, tidying beds, mowing grass, seed lists exchanged with other Botanic Gardens around the world and seedlings being reared in the glasshouses.
The four surviving renga lilies I’ve reared from seed are thriving much better on a bench at Moorbank than in my draughty cold conservatory.
The garden will be open during the upcoming Late Shows on Saturday 18th May 7 – 11pm and for the NGS on 22nd May 4 – 8pm.
It was very satisfying to see one of the cherry trees in bloom, squaring the circle of my time away.
Prunus kurilensis ‘Brilliant’
We’ve never, no, not for a single day,
pure space before us, such as that which flowers
endlessly open into.
Rilke, ‘The Eighth Elegy’
Botanical 
Re the Rilke poem: It took me a minute to figure out that flowers is a noun, I read it as a verb and simply couldn’t make sense of the last line, trying to think how it must be in the original German.’ Too clever by half’ sometimes!
Cherry blossom way ahead of mine here.