:: 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!!

:: xerochysum brachteatum iv ::

Strawflowers or fried egg flowers?! Somehow I get the giggles when I look at this pair, which have been giving me an eyeful for quite some time now...LOL!

:: 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.

:: malus iv ::

apple blossom down the driveway

...another  great gardening day after all the rain stopped and the wind subsided a little...lupins hacked down and shredded for the chooks, the digging in and over of that bed has started and about a zillion of those 'little garden' seedlings Miss P had raised are all pricked out...

:: digitalis ::

And the foxgloves are out...!

:: 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!

:: rosa xxv ::

The days of Spring are passing in a blur of busy garden activity and I am watching right now as the stunning blossom of the Jonathon apple out the front window is being torn from the boughs before I've even taken my photo!!

Such as it is - much to do and fitting it in between the fits and starts that is Spring weather...I am inside in between showers that really are pretty short-lived today - should perhaps have just donned a raincoat and been done with it...it is nice and warm inside with a cup of tea...LOL!

In the last ten days the mutabilis rose has opened its buds to the warmer air and I am struck by the wow of colour happening - I planted stoechas Lavender below - so much brightness suddenly after the almost invisible palette of Winter!