Spring in my garden

These are all tulips from Sarah Raven's Venetian collection. I think they're just gorgeous, but there are more to come. The oranges have come out first, but there are some dark handsome ones to follow.

I love the fleck of green in this one.

This is a teeny tiny species tulip, just peeping through.

Magnolia Stellata flowering for the first time. It was one of those Gardeners World magazine 'free magnolia for every reader' offers and was little more than a twig when it arrived. I planted it in the garden and, just as it was settling in, it got weeded by mistake. Currently it's in a pot in the lee of the polytunnel until it's big enough to try its chances in the big garden again.

Erysimum Bowles mauve - flowers its socks off for most of the year. What a star!

Dicentra spectabilis - or Dutchman's breeches or bleeding heart etc. 

My favourite paeony fighting its way though the primulas, wild strawberries and aquligias.

This afternoon's project - the wigwam for my sweet peas. Hazel from the hedge bound up with willow. Not the best example of handicraft perhaps, but free.

Merryweather damson, planted just a few weeks ago and now in glorious blossom.

Little gems for a future salad. The polytunnel is bursting at the seams with seedlings.

A tiny fern finds a home in the wall I built last year.