“Bring Me Sunshine”

At last! A bit of sunshine, to lighten the gloom and lift the spirits!

All this wet and windy weather recently, has well and truly dampened the spirits, so, with a bit of welcome sunshine, the walk round the estate was much more pleasant, and I’m pleased to say, not so rushed. O.k., here, it may still be cold and very blustery, and not conducive to dallying for too long, but it was a pleasure to wander, and to take time to enjoy the new season’s offerings.

And that’s hellebores and snowdrops.

What better way to rejoice in the sunshine than to share with you, my aptly named hellebore, shown at the top. An Ashwood hybrid, from the “Sunrise” range. It has the most wonderful warm shades of yellow, peach and red – unusual colouring in a hellebore.

Talking of red, just look how my Hellebore “Anna’s Red” has come on, since the early buds I showed at the end of last year.

Quite stunning!

I think it looks quite at home in “The Dogs Bed”, alongside the complementary coloured stems of Cornus and the expanding clumps of Snowdrop “S. Arnott”.

Other hellebores are starting to unfurl now, in varying shades of white and pink. Give them a few more weeks and they’ll make a pretty picture, when the “February Gold” narcissi start to open and new green shots emerge.

I took time to survey the borders (i.e. do a lot of thinking!) to try to work out the changes I am considering. I do fear I may be trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot! Let’s hope I can be disciplined!

And what can bring more sunshine than the earliest of yellow narcissi?

Is anything bringing sunshine to your gardens?

Scent in the Garden in March – For My 100th Post

Ypsilandra thibetica

I think it’s very fitting for me to be doing a post on scent in the garden, for my 100th post. After all, for me, it’s the highlight of my garden, and what governs my choices.

I’m joining in with Wellywoman’s meme on scent in the garden. I know I’m late with this – hope I’m not too late.

I must start with the hard to pronounce, and even harder to spell, Ypsilandra thibetica. The simple fact though, is that this looks and smells gorgeous! This perennial was introduced to me by a fellow blogger last year, and when Chloris described its violet tinged and violet scented flowers, I had to have it for my Scented Shrub border. I tracked it down at a nearby nursery, soon after, and since then, its clump of strappy, light green leaves has happily sat there, doing not much, till a few weeks ago when the flower buds started to form. You can imagine how excited I’ve been to experience its first flowering – at least for me. The white flower spikes, tinged with lilac, are like chunky bottle brushes! And it does have a lovely violet scent – although I do have to get down on my hands and knees to appreciate it! I hadn’t appreciated how good it would look nestled among the purple crocuses hidden from view when the Ypsilandra was planted.

Elsewhere, last month’s contributions are STILL going strong.

Mahonia japonica

STILL pumping out its lovely, lily-of-the-valley perfume!

Lonicera fragrantissima

STILL producing even more of its delicious lemonade scented flowers!

Sarcococca humilis

STILL no change!

Chimonanthus praecox

STILL hanging on, but fading now, both flowers and scent.

Coronilla glauca “Citrina”

And STILL flowering as well as when it first started back in November.

I did fear there may not be much else new to show you.
Abeliophyllum distichum is just about flowering but the very tiny white flowers are very sparse and didn’t take kindly to photographing.

I realised the Daphne laureola had started flowering.

The flowers are hard to spot, nestled under the plant’s dark, evergreen leaves, but they are worth looking for, with their lovely, lime-green flowers, with a delicate sweet scent.

The mini narcissus that had graced my eggcup, are looking lovely, spreading themselves about in the Woodland garden.

These ones here, are, I think, “February Gold”.

The ones that “Kingsley”‘s presiding over, are unknown, coming from a floral display and planted out.

But look what I almost missed!

Look closely and you can just make out the remnants of Azara microphylla’s tiny yellow blooms. This was only planted last year, to replace one I lost, and hadn’t shown any signs of flowering – or so I thought! They were too small, too few and too low down to appreciate the vanilla “cake-like” perfume I happily remember from its predecessor.

And then, the most pleasant surprise!

I planted Viola odorata as part of a decorative herb border, many years ago, and thought I had lost them. I thought they had been swamped out by a weedlike variety with no scent, but look what just popped up! Definitely Viola odorata – Mmm….!

I’ve enjoyed my 100 posts and have read and “met” many lovely people in the process! Thank you all!

How’s your garden smelling?

In a Vase on Monday – My “Copy Cat” Vase!

I was so inspired by Cathy’s magnificent egg cup collection, in her meme of last week, that I vowed to do a copy cat vase. Hope you don’t mind, Cathy!

I decided to show off my “collection” of four! The spotty ones were bought to co-ordinate with our dinner service, which we have displayed on our dresser. The other two came courtesy of our son’s Easter eggs from his childhood. Oh, and I added in a plain white one – the ones we actually use. ( After all, all good displays are based on odd numbers!) Not really much of a collection, eh? But I loved what Cathy did last week, with her eggcup, and it made me think twice about what you can use to make a lovely arrangement.

I picked a few blooms of an unknown miniature narcissus to grace the eggcup. These were planted out from a lovely Mother’s Day gift a couple of years ago. I’m so pleased it can live on in the garden. I chose to show off the display on the dresser, complete with the rest of the dinner set, and some examples of one of my collections.

Not much of an arrangement, but pretty, I think!

Please pop over to Cathy’s blog, “Rambling In The Garden”, to see more of her lovely, imaginative vases.