Getting an angle on sines of life

It is quite obvious that the grass is now growing nicely in many of the burnt parts of the countryside. At the very least we now have a checkerboard of green and black (with a largely brown superstructure).

There are other indications of nature fighting back.  Beside our drive, right outside the kitchen window we have some Colchicums (wrongly called Autumn Crocus) giving a burst of cream:
 With a few added raindrops (14mm in the past few days) they are very pretty.
 In the sunroom bed some Acanthus are shooting again.  Hopefully they'll capture a serve of energy before Uncle Frost comes to kill them off.
 A little down the drive Frances noticed some bright green in a Eucalyptus (I think E. meliodra - Yellow Box).
 Yes!  It the first epicormic growth we have noticed thus far.
A day later Frances noticed that one of the plum trees is shooting ...
 .. and astonishingly, flowering!

As an aside, having mentioned frost above I have had a look at the dates of the first frosts as recorded for Carwoola.  
  • I first used the broad definition of a frost (temperature at screen height less than +2oC) which equates to a ground temperature of 0oC).  This shows that in 11 of the 24 years for which I have measurements a temperature that low has been recorded before the end of March.  In a further 10 years it has been recorded by 15 April.
  • Looking at the tighter definition  (temperature at screen height less than 0oC) shows that only 9 years have a temperature that low by 15 April and in 8 years we had to wait until May.

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