Category Archives: Garden

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In a Vase on Monday: The ‘Edge

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I am joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden once again for her weekly meme, and this Monday my tiny bird vase is filled with flowers from The ‘Edge, which is the curved border marking the edge of the flower garden and acting as a semi ‘hedge’.

And my prop is the edge of the table it is standing on! 😉

The contents are: Spiraea foliage, Alchemilla mollis, a tulip (Ballerina I think), Epimediums and Euphorbia polychroma.

These colours – gold, orange, red – are the predominant colours of The ‘Edge all year. It’s a lovely sight in spring!

I am really busy in the garden and greenhouse right now, getting flowers sown and potting on my veg. And the new vegetable garden is finally up and ready, and can be planted in a week or two. That was more work than I imagined… I’ll do a post on that soon.

In the meantime, have a great week

and

Happy Gardening!

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In a Vase on Monday: Spring Blues

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A few days ago I showed a picture of a very blue Pulmonaria, along with some other Pulmonarias, as one of my Five Favourites for April. Well, I knew I wanted to use it in a vase, so I decided to collect some other blue flowers to go with it.

There are a couple of different Pulmonarias actually – the very blue ‘Benediction’, then the pale blueish/mauve-white(!) Ocupol, and another unnamed one.

Muscari in all variations joined the party, as did the very blue Omphalodes verna, commonly known as Blue-eyed Mary. And at the front I added a sprig of Catmint (Nepeta) that has not quite opened yet but does show a hint of blue.

I love using Alchemilla mollis leaves as a kind of collar for vases, so was pleased to see they are now large enough to cut. They even had fresh raindrops on them when I went out this morning, and had I been earlier they would probably have had frost on them. Yes, it is still cold here at night, and the days have been mostly cool, so my spring flowers are lasting well.

The icing on the cake is the Snowflake, Leucojum aestivum. The bulbs are so expensive here, and I find they do not always come back reliably, so each one that pops up is adored. I don’t have snowdrops, but I do at least have a few of these!

I am happy to join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her weekly meme on this chilly but sunny spring morning.

I hope you all have some warm sunshine this week, and wish you

Happy Gardening!🐞

 

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Five Favourites, April 2026

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Around the middle of each month I regularly share five favourites growing in my garden and would love you to join me!

This month I found it hard to select only five, as I love ALL my plants and there is much to choose from; the garden is slowly coming to life and the gaps are gradually filling in. Last month I chose Primulas as one of my favourites, and they are still going strong this month, spreading even further (with a little extra help from the gardener and her trusty trowel!)

So for my first favourite this month I have chosen Primulas again, except it is actually one very special Primula. She opened on a cold March day, with frost and snow flurries, and looked quite pale and chilly. But she has filled out and now has the faintest pink tinge to her petals. She is adorable!

Primula denticulata

She is meant to be lilac/blue, but remains this delicate shade of mauve. ❣️

Number two for April is the dazzling troll flower (I have decided it is a Ranunculus asiaticus, sadly not hardy here) which I actually shared in my post about the greenhouse recently. That cheery colour welcomes me come rain or shine and I challenge anyone not to smile when they look at it! I will try and keep the tuber to replant next year.

My third choice had to be the flowering apricot, Prunus mume  ‘Beni-chidori’. It has done remarkably well in my windy garden, considering the plant I received by mail order was a bit lop-sided to start with. It has grown noticeably in the last twelve months and is now in its third spring here.

Fourth is the Pulmonaria. I do love blue flowers and the true blue ‘Benediction’ is perfect. But I also like the delicate pinky blue one with spotty foliage, and a white one I have that is called Occupol, with a hint of mauve to its petals. Click on the photos to see them up close with their names.

Pulmonaria (possibly ‘Trevi Fountain’
Pulmonaria Ocupol
Pulmonaria ‘Benediction’

Finally, after much deliberation and after rejecting my beautiful Spiraeas coming into leaf, or the amazing crown imperial fritillaries, I decided on number five: the Hyacinths.

Grape hyacinths of various colours are now mingling and spreading in the Moon Bed, and the larger Hyacinths in a rainbow of colours have been filling the garden with their sweet fragrance for several weeks now.

Our cool weather means that not only are they lasting much longer than usual, but also the scent is more delicate and not overpowering. We have only been able to sit under the pergola in the scented Words and Herbs Bed a couple of times so far, but even when walking around the various flower beds the perfume of these, along with the primroses, is wonderful!

What are your favourites right now. If you wish, do join me and leave a link to your post below in the comments section. Thanks for reading and happy gardening!

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In a Vase on Monday: Simply Tulips

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Every Spring these beautiful tulips return in the Herb Bed, which may be the hottest and driest bed in summer, catching the coldest winds in winter. Isn’t it magic how something so pretty can survive such harsh conditions?

And since they are doing so well I have picked some for a vase, as I join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden and the rest of the crew with a Monday arrangement.

I think they are ‘Apricot Emperor’.

Gorgeous!

And after being in the warm house for a couple of hours they opened up completely…

Now isn’t that nice?!

This might just be my favourite tulip of all time. Talking of favourites, I’ll be posting my Five Favourites for April in a day or two, so why not join me? It will be hard to whittle it down to five this month!

In the meantime, have a good start to the week and Happy Gardening!

🌷🌷🌷

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Five Favourites, March 2026

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After almost a week away, visiting the UK for Mothering Sunday (British Mother’s Day) , I was excited to return to my garden and see what was emerging. Not much had changed actually, despite plenty of showers and sunshine, but I suppose that is because we are still getting frosty nights. That will hopefully mean that things will not progress too quickly and I will be able to enjoy flowers for longer. In fact the crocuses that opened earlier in the month are still mostly looking lovely.

But the crocuses are not one of my Five Favourites this month – I just wanted to sneak in an extra photo! LOL!

This month was easier than last to find five plants/flowers that grab my attention. And number one for March was not hard to choose: my beautiful larch trees, Larix decidua. Thanks to Jenny at zonethreegarden, who shared some larch twigs she had forced in a vase on Monday, I was prompted to check my trees as soon as I got home. And yes, they are slowly revealing their gorgeous pink flowers. I will be watching them closely in the next couple of weeks.

I can’t stress enough how much I love these trees. I have seven in a circle which I call my Lärchen/Märchen-Wald – my larch/fairytale forest. 😉 I will share more pictures once the fresh lime green needles appear.

Number two is this particular Hellebore, whose name has been lost. The pinkish tinge to the yellow flowers is quite magical.

My third choice is the Iris reticulata, although they are beginning to fade now. These photos are from March 9th. I think the dark blue one is Harmony.

And these paler ones are ‘Scentsational’ but sadly I could not detect any scent… possibly due to the cold?

Number four is a velvety Pulsatilla vulgaris, just starting to unfurl its petals. The foliage alone is so pretty and makes you want to bend down and stroke the furry leaves and buds. The rich purple flowers are an added bonus and will produce gorgeous fluffy seedheads late spring.

And finally, for number five, I just couldn’t decide which yellow I liked best… Primrose yellow?

Or Viola gold?

Which would you choose?!

Do join me if you like, and share your Five Favourites of the month – and leave a link below.

Happy Gardening!

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Five Favourites, February 2026

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Last autumn, when I started this monthly project of finding five favourite plants in my garden to share, I thought January might be tricky, but I didn’t imagine February would be the hardest month to find anything! Our winter has not been incredibly cold or snowy, but it has been consistently cold, with hardly any days above zero until last week. So I don’t even have a crocus to squeal over yet.

But I have found some lovely things (after looking hard!) First of all my pretty witch hazel, Hamamelis ‘Diane’.

Although I haven’t detected any scent yet, she has been flowering well for over a week now. 😁

Number two this month is this pretty Hepatica nobilis growing under a plastic dome in the greenhouse. I love these flowers and especially love seeing them in the wild, but in the area we live in now, they don’t like the soil. So I decided to plant one in a pot, to be kept in the greenhouse over winter. That way, when the sun does shine and the flowers open out completely, I can go out to soak up some warmth in there and admire the flowers at the same time.

Sunshine has been rare recently, but this morning we had some lovely warm rays and I noticed this tiny Cyclamen coum coming into flower… early days yet, but what a heart-warming sight!

My fourth plant is a Hellebore. Although the ground is still thawing out, the buds are showing colour and it is uplifting to see signs of life in the flower beds. I managed to trim all the old leaves off them last week, so that the flowers will be visible once they open, and this was a photo taken immediately after their tidy up. It was very cold, so I didn’t linger to tidy them up any more, and now they are covered in a dusting of snow again!

And finally, I simply had to choose this dear little Pansy that has been flowering on and off throughout the winter in the greenhouse. It has been frozen multiple times, but the occasional sunshine revives it and it may not look quite as fresh as when I bought it last autumn, but its smiling face is extremely cheering!

What is there to see in your garden this month?

If you would like to join me and share five of your favourite plants, please do – and leave a link below! I shall continue this project through 2026 and am especially excited about what I may be sharing next month, unless winter returns with a vengeance… Fingers crossed!

 

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In a Vase on Monday: Miniature Forest

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Each Monday I join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her weekly meme. While Cathy’s late winter garden is looking beautiful, with snowdrops and hellebores in full bloom, we awoke to more snow today, covering any plants that were considering emerging but hadn’t quite decided! Well, fortunately I managed to find some wintery bits and pieces yesterday…

My witch hazel ‘Diane’ has been flowering for about a week now, and a small twig could be spared for my ikebana vase. To complement the orangey red, I cut a few red stems of Cornus and felt it made my witch hazel look as if it is in a forest of red-barked trees!

The Hellebores at the base are from a plant growing under cover and wrapped in fleece in the greenhouse. I bought this in full flower in the autumn (!), but the early onset of winter in November meant it never got planted out. It is nice to have something in the almost empty greenhouse though, and the flowers are beautiful even when they go over and start to form seeds. 😄

I wonder if your garden is showing signs of life yet?

Wishing you all some winter sunshine!