garden beginning of April

Front Garden

Nothing says spring like a pink hyacinth in full bloom and the tulips in bud and ready to burst into flower.

in the same pot, a small exquisite viola

snake's head fritillary

I bought two packs of the snake's head fritillary bulbs and put 1 pack in each pot below. Unfortunately I'm not sure which was in each but judging by the questionable quality of other Taylor bulbs I presume that is the pot of only 3  (on the right below) growing out of 10 or 12 that were in the pack. I assume the pot on the left with 10 or 12 bulbs growing is the one from Sainsburys.

some cheerful pink anemones, an impulse buy at the garden centre recently, one of my many outstanding garden tasks are to dig in those pieces of edging

Back Garden

the green alkanet bloomed today for the first time this spring

the bergenia's been in bloom for a while, Polly Pocket on the table

This is the first auricula in bloom and also the first one I've identified to cull. What a boring colour. If I had more room I would be inclined to keep it but with very limited space I have to keep the colours I love only.

I dug up all the bluebells from this flowerbed last summer. They are not erradicated that easily! All those bulb sprouts below are bluebells I missed.

I was weeding my flower bed near the pond (below), a pre-formed one so it's not very big, when I stood up to removed the pile of weeds and look in the pond hopefully for frogspawn (I've never had any) I was horrified to see a giant worm, about a foot long, slither over the muddy part (to the right of my trowel sticking up from the soil) and into the pond. I've never seen anything like it.