Around the garden in early April

It's been a busy couple of weeks recently, which is great as it helps distract from the rainy grey days. There have been a couple of glorious mornings though, like yesterday, when we've had coffee in the garden with friends and family, but generally there's been too much cowering indoors dodging the heavy rain and hailstones like marbles. Still it's good for the garden, although even that seems to have gone back into hibernation, going through a fallow period with not a lot happening. In an unusually fine half hour today I wandered around and took some pics to show you.

The black widow geranium or Geranium phaeum is one of my favourites, as it's the first cranesbill of the year and self-seeds tastefully, always finding plants that complement its understated beauty. 

This splendid looking Camellia williamsii 'Donation' has never looked so good before, she's a blaze of blooms and colour right now.

Camellia 'Black Lacel' is a new addition in the front garden and seems to like her shady spot.

The walled bellflower Campanula poscharskyana is another volunteer that's almost a nuisance. However, she's such a pretty little thing that I can't bear to pull her up. 

The hellebores are in full swing and associate really well with the tail  end of the hyacinths...

...which in previous years have been planted out after first flowering indoors. The hazy figure of the bruised and battered garden gnome was made by Felix many years ago. I must confess I'm not a gnome lover, although I would never knowingly harm one. However, he's had many knocks over the years, being accidentally dropped by successive well-meaning but clumsy children. I've become quite sentimental about him as he magically moves around the garden for the grandkids to find.

Neither am I a lover of the elephantine daffodils that are planted in many gardens, although I do love them inside during the cold January and February days. But outdoors I much prefer any of the smaller narcissi, like these delicate little Tête à Têtes.

The last of the crocuses add a splash of much-needed colour. The birds have attacked all the others leaving them looking limp and defeated.

Django looking handsome under this scarlet amaryllis, nice contrast to his monotone palette 😉

Wanted to show you this fossilised centre of one of last year's blooms on our Magnolia grandiflora. It was such a poor summer that by the time most of the buds had formed, the weather was too cold for them to open and the petals just rotted and fell off leaving this structure in the centre. I love the different textures - there must be a sweater design in there somewhere!

Work in progress

Another thing that's been happening in the past few days is that we've been having the French doors in the music room replaced. The previous doors were only single-glazed to half way down, but now we're getting the benefit of the new full-length, double-glazed doors, feeling warm and cosy whilst having a much better view of the garden.

Nearly done, almost there except for a couple of bolts

The cut down old doors

The top half of the original doors are a real bonus too. Cut down, they'll be great to use as frames for a couple of outdoor quadriptyches (now all we have to do is make them!). Watch this space..

Izzi's teeshirt

Ava's teeshirt

lyra's tiedyed teeshirt

And finally, just wanted to tell you about something I've had a lot of fun doing with the grandkids - ie I've rediscovered tie-dyeing. It's really interesting how a few elastic bands and some colourful dye can transform boring white teeshirts into unique designs.  I'm quite tempted to do one for myself! 😀

Thanks for dropping by x