Early Spring 2022 – Let’s get back to the flowers!

Early spring is a wonderful time of year. It starts slowly with the snowdrops and hellebores.

Incredibly the hellebores are still going strong, after all these weeks.

Then the first of the crocus come out to join them.

Suddenly, you can hardly keep up with things popping up, here there and everywhere.

You notice the first odd flower on the primulas. It feels like the next time you look they’re covered in bright little yellow flowers.

On a sunny day as you walk down the garden, you smell the hyacinths before you see them. Of course the bees have already found them. It’s so important to have nectar rich flowers for as much of the year as possible for the wildlife.

The later flowering and slightly taller ‘pickwick’ crocus come out. They have the most amazing veins on them.

At the same time there’re all different varieties of daffodils bursting into flower. The large double Narcissus ‘Tahiti’, with really dark orange in its folds.

Then the shaggy looking ‘Rip van Winkle’, that looks like it needs a hairbrush.

Multi headed, Narcissus ‘Martinette’ with a flat bright yellow background and small orange trumpets, that smell gorgeous.

Strangely enough the white varieties are always later, so not out yet.

Nearly all of the yellow daffodil bulbs were already here in the garden when we came. I’ve mainly planted them in pots around the front of the house.

Carrying on with bulbs, the delicate little Scilla’s are out, and they’re really bulking up. Quite a few have self seeded into the gravel.

If you thought the hyacinths were pumping perfume into the garden. That’s nothing now, in comparison to the flowers of the Skimmia shrub. The perfume fills all of the white garden and beyond. At times it’s been simply covered in honey bees. The ladybirds are partial too.

We have pink blossom on the three Prunus pissardii Nigra trees, and their leaves are unfurling fast.

Even the pond has flowers, from the Water Buttercup ‘Ranunculus lingua grandiflora’. Looking lovely being reflected in the water. The frog activity has settled down now, so there’s peace again.

The majestic magnolias are in full swing. The star shaped Magnolia Stellata down in the white garden has more flowers on every year. Magnolia Liliiflora Nigra, has dark pink buds, that open into paler flowers. I’ve gave it, it’s first trim earlier this year, and I’m pleased with the shape.