:: scabiosa ::

The scabiosa (doesn't sound very nice, does it???) or pincushion flower - really good at attracting beneficial insects to the garden, looks lovely and I think I'd like to put it on 2017's cultivation/procurement list!

:: fuchsia iv ::

3 maids a-leaping?!

:: cynara cardunculus v ::

A party - in an artichoke! Three, beautiful, big, fat furry bumbles and one spritely honey bee all fully engaged in the pleasures of this pretty light purple artichoke flower.

I know we are growing these as a multipurpose plant in the front garden and that one of the purposes is as a perennial food-source...

...but I haven't quite gotten my head around how to cook these - so any tips will be welcomed for easy prep and eating!

Service may have been interrupted due to another party held yesterday and I may have allowed myself to be a wee bit distracted...

...as one of the other Mums commented: "You don't realise how tired you are until the last event (in a string of lots of events in the past term of school) is over and it hits you!"...this just about summed up the feeling upon the inevitable collapse onto the sofa last night...

...and I can't quite believe we then put the projector on to watch a beautiful anime movie (Wolf Children) with Miss P - but we did and it was beautiful and probably just what we needed before falling swiftly and soundly to sleep straight after :)

:: pansy xii ::

Gosh, many more cobwebs being blown away today...and a neighbour's elderflowers are taunting me from across the road, swaying and bending in this wind...come and take as many as you want, they said...

...hmmm...that does mean making up the syrup afterwards...am I feeling that lazy this Sunday? 

YES!

:: rosa xxxi ::

Look what just opened in the rose 'patch'??? From a slender twig of a stem, something new has arisen...I didn't even know this was in the 'patch'!!

:: pansy xi ::

as busy as the pansies proliferating in the backyard today...not proliferating...just doing, doing,doing!

:: pansy x ::

soggy, still and chilly here today...time to declutter the work room...the 'W' room!!

:: pansy ix ::

Another of the sweet, irresistible wee pansy faces popping up all around the clothesline - making hanging the washing a pleasure...and an undeniable 'Spring' flower..

....today I'm feeling the energies of Spring, the waxing sun and the stirring of much sudden growth in the garden, getting out and planting 60 sweetcorn plants and more sunflowers in between long spells resting and reading (for an annoying lurgy has most-inconveniently struck!).

...and I am definitely not feeling the waning energies of Autumn, being celebrated with pumpkins, hunkering down and warming food as is the Northern Hemisphere with their focus on Hallowe'en...

...so it is a weird time for me as we are commercially surrounded by urgings to partake in this 'Hallowe'en' festival...and I found myself creating a little cute homemade treat for the inevitable 'trick or treaters' that have indeed come by this evening...

Give me bunnies and chocolate eggs, Spring flowers and the hopes and wishes of the warm Summer months to come, don't give me goblins, witches and the goobeldy-gook of Hallowe'en!!

:: geranium x cantabrigiense ::

One of the unexpected 'wee' treasures I picked up at last year's Spring Fair Plant Stall at the Christchurch Rudolf Steiner School...

...a sweet creeping groundcover miniature geranium in this very lovely shade of violet...had no idea what colour is was when I bought it - so happy now it is flowering for the first time under the apricot tree.

:: echium iii ::

the halo of pink stamens around these echium, which seem to be everywhere is so pretty...but even so I couldn't resist playing with the saturation...LOL!

:: iris ::

Happy 100th birthday Nana Joy what a remarkable day we have as a family today to celebrate.

:: freesia ii ::

Sitting here at the dining table, supposedly, mindfully doing one thing at a time - that would be eating the wholesome salad for lunch ;-) - but actually creating a blog post too ;-) - my nostrils are being tickled by the delicious scent of these beautiful freesia, as the Northerly breeze is literally forcing the smell in the door! 

Not minding a bit!

:: lavandula spica ::

Our front garden will eventually be filled with lots of perennial plants - the ones that stick around year on year and give structure to a space, like the lavender I have been jamming in wherever possible.

These lovely floral shrubs grow relatively without any help and need little or no feeding and only really want for a bit of airy sunshine, they provide flowers for bees to forage in for weeks and weeks, provide a great, subtle 'grey-green' foliage colour that blends with our pink house well and they smell lovely too.

I really have no idea about lavender varieties, and have planted a few.  We have inherited some very gangly and previously uncared-for 'grosso' lavenders, which have remained, even with their contorted shapes, as their scent is truly heavenly and I can't bear to part with their strange, leggy, woody, mishapen forms until I have replacements growing happily!

Looking up the etymology of the name, lavandula, it appears most likely to have come from the French, 'lavandre', which is turn came from the Latin 'lavere' - to wash - and lavender is certainly a commonly-used essential oil and scent in many items associated with washing and cleaning.

:: pansy vi ::

There has been a pansy explosion here - from just a couple of punnets planted two Summers ago by Miss P, we now have an abundance of very pretty floaty pansy blooms proliferating the area between the vegetable garden and the clothes line...that's a self-seeding I really don't mind!

:: viola odorata iii ::

A lively storm is whipping its way around the traps today, keeping me inside as much as possible - so far there has been lashings of wind, rain, hail, sleet and then I'm sure I spied a few snowflakes as well!

I'm definitely not going to dally about outside spying and snapping pics of flowers today, no siree!

Here's the wee bunch of violets I picked yesterday in preparation for today, knowing I would want to sniff their luscious scent on the table next to me

and at least save some from the ravages of this mighty end of Winter/Spring storm...yum...here's to tomorrow being calmer again :-)

:: muscari ::

Another sweet Spring flower - the grape hyacinth - now blooming in decent numbers at the base of one of our espaliered apples...

...named after the Greek, muschos meaning 'musk', referring to it's fragrant nature.

:: rosmarinus officinalis ::

Surprises are mostly wonderful things...like this rosemary plant that began flowering recently with wild striations of colour I had not expected! COOL!

I was originally thinking I would tell you all about Rosemary - maybe another time - as I had another great surprise today...

...I gingerly went along with 4 jars of saved bean and pumpkin seed that I was willing to part with to the local Spring Seed Swap for the first time...

...my little collection of what I had managed to remember to save and look after felt a bit precious and I put them down on a table scattered with tatty envelopes, names (of what seemed at first glance to be undesirable or old) seeds within scrawled across the fronts in chicken-scratching marks...

...and wondered why on earth had I decided to turn up!

...the small group gathered were hardy-looking gardener sorts most a few decades older than me...

...and then more people turned up...and more...families and hipsters alongside expert greenthumbs...

...more seed packets added to those tables and I began to inspect these little packages a bit more closely...

...actually there were lots of seeds here I would like to grow in my garden...

...by this stage there was a lovely, friendly buzz about the tables and everybody there was respectful and moderate in the amounts they took/swapped...

...my enthusiasm fired up and I ended up taking home about 20 little bags of seeds to update my collection for this season - what an absolutely brilliant event! 

What a nice surprise for a Saturday afternoon in Spring!

:: chionodoxa ::

...or 'glory-of-the-snow' - how sweet is this little flowering bulb...I've been walking past these for weeks and weeks now and the sun is usually so full on them that they are not great to attempt a photo of...

...I thought these were a carpet of crocus - but their more star-like petals are much less cup-like than crocus...a wonderful starry display, never-the-less!!

:: viola odorata ::

 I had hoped for a frosty framing for the first peek at one of my favourite flowers, the violet, this morning as we had a, shall I say, 'generous' frost.

But by the time I was back from walking Miss Olive, the frost was already disappearing and instead the violets were coated in the slightly more challenging to photograph fine droplets of misty water!

 I was so excited to remember that I had planted lots of little violet plants in Spring last year...and I hoped there might be...some...

...well, wishes do come true and I was met with a most agreeable sight surrounding the old apricot  tree - there was what could almost be described as a 'swathe' of violet plants covering the ground...and also exciting...

...the daffodil bulbs planted 2 years ago, which gave a small display last year, seem to have gathered strength and each one has 5-7 leaf shoots driving straight upwards from the midst of all these lovely, sweet-smelling violets...ah, Spring!

:: thunbergia laurifolia ::

One of the stunning views I was able to pause and admire several times on a daily basis was this lush and delicate combination of a flurry of generously-proportioned and blousy blue trumpet vine flowers and bright leafy vine, languidly tumbling over the edge of an archway between buildings.

Common to Asian tropical gardens it is also a very useful plant for treating ear ailments, even deafness, by crushing the leaves and using the resulting juice in the ear canal.