A Riot of Spring Blossom

We have had the first really nice day in ages. Everything is still very wet out there but I try to remind myself that at least we are not contending with fires or floods like so many places in the world. The days are lengthening and soon I will be able to get out there and work on tidying things up for all my garden treasures that are still sleeping under the soil. In the meantime I have this wonderful mass of spring blossom to herald the change of seasons. This tree is out be the clothes line so when I go out to hang clothes on the line it greets me with its abundance. Later in the year its leaves will provide media for eco printing or stitching on but at the moment it just a burst of colour in what has been a very dreary winter

Soon the Tuis will be here en masse

The first of the flowering cherries is just bursting into flower so Spring can’t be far off. Tuis love the nectar in the flowers of the cherry blossom and they will arrive and fight over the best place to sit and gorge on the nectar. It is always a delight and it amazes me that if I go our with washing to hang on the line they virtually ignore me. But if I go out with my camera, they suddenly become very cagey.

The days have certainly lengthened but the weather remains wet and cold. We always seem to get colder weather after the Winter solstice. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was more sun but many days are overcast and bleak which makes it seem colder than the temperature says.

I still have lots to do in the garden with cutting back. You can see in the foreground of this photo the hydrangea heads have not been cut off since last summer. That has to do with how miserable it has been to be out in the garden. The few reasonable days I have spent adding mulch to the garden, trimming the buxus and weeding the garden under the kitchen window - where the heucheras are. I love the colourful leaves of the heucheras and I bought a new on out, wild rose, so I weeded that garden to plant the new one out there. I always look for heucheras that I buy that have more than one head so I can divide the plant and get two for one. As the name suggests this one is a deep pinky colour in the leaves.

While I do have spots of flowering annuals/perennials I tend to look more for foliage plants these days as they give a longer bang for the buck and create areas with their contrasting textures and shapes that are less work and more pleasure.

Harbingers of Spring

While the nights are still pretty cold., Spring is on the way. These beautiful daffodils down the drive are the first early signs that, with the longer days, spring is not far away. I love spring with all the precious plants that have been sleeping under the ground start to come to life and blossoms begin to break out.

I have been busy putting down mulch around the garden to keep the influx of weeds that come with warmer weather and keep the moisture in over summer. It is a big job as the garden is quite large but work now saves work later on.