Some of my favourite flowers are in bloom now, or in bud, waiting to burst forth. There are plenty of Dicentra throughout the garden.
I love the way this one is mingling with the Chives and Aquilegias.
And the Aquilegias, my favourite garden flower, are everywhere. And I do mean EVERYWHERE! These are Clementine Purple, a really lovely variety for contrasting with other brighter colours.
I have so many, I've kind of lost touch with the names of each one, but I know there are Winky Blue and Whites and Black Barlow around somewhere too.
As anyone who has them in their garden will know, they are prolific self-seeders. I love spotting little patches of their new seedlings, and really don't mind that you never know how the flower on the grown plant will eventually look. I love them all!
Foxgloves and Poppies are getting ready to bloom, with the promise of glorious colour.
And the Alliums dotted all over the garden are emerging from their jackets. I added some white ones late last year, so I'm keen to see how they'll look.
As far as work in the garden goes, well, I've been really busy again. We had a few very warm days so I got all the jobs done that I didn't know needed doing until I really studied certain areas. Some of the Ferns in the shady area got trimmed back now their new fronds are emerging. The larger Dryopteris ferns were done about two months ago as they looked messy and tend to unfurl earlier. Underneath some of the dead leaves, I was thrilled to find a self seeded baby fern.
It may look like a lot of bare space in front here, but when the fern leaves fully unfurl, they drop and cover this whole area.
I added a new Astilbe, just behind the foxgloves and poppies here.
And a Brunnera, which I love for it's delicate Forget-Me-Not type flowers and variegated leaves. It should like it here as the soil is moist in front of the wildlife ponds.
I also think I've solved the climber dilemma I had in THIS post. I've planted Clematis Special Occasion to scramble up the shed, and an evergreen Honeysuckle Henryi to twine around the Lilac. That may take some time to get going though, as I managed to snap off the main growing stem while planting it!
One other purchase was for the back wall. This was exposed when the Leylandii were chopped down a few years ago and since then I've been trying to clothe it in plants to cover up it's ugliness. The Pyracantha has done brilliantly along with Clematis Pixie, and the Ivy is now getting a good foothold and has started to creep upwards. I spotted this pretty Solanum 'Glasnevin' in the garden centre though, and thought it would be perfect to fill the left hand side. The little flowers are so pretty. If it's happy here, it should spread out nicely.
I also did some rather back breaking digging, moving my large Bay from one side of the back area to the other. It was sitting just in front of the Raspberries before and they were threatening to overtake it, so it's now in a new home with only a Hardy Geranium for company at present. I gave it a good trim too, and it's looking much healthier.
A whole new patch in the garden was added too, taking inspiration from my visit to KEW GARDENS. Can you guess what I planted? All will be revealed in my next post.
