Blooming March

I've come to the conclusion that March really isn't my garden's 'month'. I took all these photographs to prove to myself that it wasn't all mud and couch grass but I was only slightly cheered. Everything is a bit battered and bitten, perhaps unsurprising really since we're fairly exposed here on the side of the Preselis.

This is a Rosie primrose and would look better if something hadn't been nibbling at its pretty petals.

Primulas always seem a good idea in the dark days of spring but they don't really stand up to the weather here. At least there are many blooms to come and bring a welcome splash of colour under the leaden grey skies we've been having recently.

These cowslips arrived as a tray of baby seedlings from Bovey Belle of the blog Codlins and Cream2 and they haven't really got into their stride yet this year. They're like fireworks, waiting to explode.

Look at all those buds! When these are all flowering it's a riot.

One of R8's many rosemary plants flowering happily in the gravel garden.

Native daffs smiling away in a damp shady corner.

The snowdrops were late this year. They used to be proper February flowers but now they arrive in March with the daffodils. Is this an effect of global warming? No flowers for ages and then they all bloom at once.

My lovely hellebore goes from strength to strength. I need more of these. Lots more.

The viburnum has finally forgive us for hacking it back to a stump and is flowering again.

So has it really cheered me up recording all these blooms? Not really. I haven't shown you a photograph of the rest because it's just not that pretty at the moment. It would look better with proper paths (funds don't allow) and it will look lovely once the annuals and herbaceous perennials come onto the scene.

Abundance

July seems to be the month of abundance in the garden. I have an abundance of good things - garlic, onions, potatoes, herbs, broad beans - but also an abundance of unwanted things - slugs, couch grass, brambles. Ah well, presumably you can't have one without the other and at least the brambles bear fruit!

One of the biggest successes this year has been the sweet peas. The plants have now formed themselves into a massive hedge underneath which are hidden the five wigwams I built when I put the plants in back in the spring. The plants are smothered with blooms and it's rather fabulous.

My sweet pea hedge

The varieties are: Anniversary, Mrs Collier, Matucana, Black Knight and Midnight (all seeds from Sarah Raven). I wish this was a 'scratch and sniff' blog because the fragrance from this many sweet peas at once quite knocks your socks off. 

Matucana

Anniversary

Meanwhile in the polytunnel another plant has rather taken over and I can't bear to weed it out because it is so beautiful.

Dill

This is Dill Mammoth, again from Sarah Raven, who says it's a good acid green filler for flower arrangements and that it 'freely self sows'. It certainly does that. I love the huge green umbellifers in big bunches in a vase and have it in mind they might make a nice motif for future sewing projects. My plan is to distribute the seedheads in the garden in the hope of more 'freely self-sowing' but this time not just in the polytunnel (where it a bit of a thug, beautiful but thug nevertheless).

The three word Gallery

Tara's inspiration for The Gallery this week was the 'your day in three words' feature from Simon Mayo's radio two show (which I listen to most evenings while I'm cooking dinner).

So my The Gallery three word Wednesdays are:

Polytunnel skeleton completed

"All" we have to do now is make the doors, dig a one foot deep and wide trench all the way round and put on the polythene cover.

Gorgeous sweet peas

R7 and I planted five different varieties last September and they've been flowering their little socks off for about a fortnight now. Here we have (little vase): Anniversary, Mrs Collier, (big vase) Matucana, Black Knight and Midnight (all seeds from Sarah Raven.)

Off with their heads!

Poor old common Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris). I'm very mean to my purple Aquilegias - come the end of May just as the poor dears are setting their seeds, I chop off their heads. I have had this thought in my head for a few years now that if I cut down all the purple ones, I'll encourage all the pretty other colours - the whites, pale pinks, deep reds - to grow instead. Invariably the blooms are still smothered in white-tailed bumble bees when I do this so I leave the tub on the lawn like a big vase until the bees had had their fill. This means they set their seed and I now have a trail of Aquilegias along the footpath from the garden to the compost heap where they have dropped their seed on the way.

Lovely Nora Barlow is allowed to seed to her heart's delight. She has a dwarfing effect on the mixed up offspring that results so they don't tend to fall over and sprawl all over the garden like the big thuggish purple ones. We affectionately refer to any that we fancy as Nora Barlow offspring as 'Gary Barlows'.

There were hundreds of white-tailed bumble bees on the blooms yesterday as I was snipping away. Aquilegias are a major feature of my garden at this time of year and the bees are obviously doing well on it. I tried to count but gave up in the 150s. They are friendly little bees and don't mind sharing a bloom. I leave the stiff stalks behind to support the peonies which are tight-fisted buds at the moment.

Finally a bee movie - I took a picture with the camera on the wrong setting and this was the brief result - a buzzy little bee.

The Gallery: April

This week's theme on The Gallery is April - a month that meant so many things this year: A long school holiday augmented by two double bank holidays and two 'snow' days; lambing; That Wedding; chocolate and Easter egg hunts and Devon with fabulous friends, good food and lovely donkeys.

I can only choose one photograph and this one perfectly illustrates the abiding memory of this April with its seemingly endless sunny days. The garden and the fields are parched and there's been a fresh wind mostly keeping the temperature down but we had one day which was still and a real scorcher.

That day was still enough for me to lie on the floor and photograph the tulips and it was too hot. Fabulous.