Willow 2

Half way through the process the tree looked like this.

I got quite excited yesterday when I noticed that the Oaks were in leaf yet the Ashes were barely budding. The old adage goes;

"If the oak before the ash, then we'll only have a splash, if the ash before the oak, then we'll surely have a soak"

So I was thinking of a long dry summer. I then found out that the Oak is nearly always out first nowadays, for reasons unknown. So as an indicator of future weather it is not reliable, if indeed it ever was.