I consider myself quite minimalist - until it comes tulips!

This is one of my favourites this year and try as I might I cannot find its name! (I will let you know....)
 

with tulips!

I've a feeling I'm going to be talking tulips all week....

Click on Coronation Wood (top right) for a little update on the latest progress.

Simply Grow probably has more posts than any other of my categories (see sidebar).
 
I spend a lot of time growing things from seed, but sometimes you only have to sow them once, and they then seed themselves. My friend Anna calls these self sown seedlings 'volunteers'. This year we have lots-

A short walk today at Benmore Botanic Garden. Sheer delight, and we seemed to have all 150 acres to ourselves in the late afternoon sunshine!

A new way to support sweet peas?
 
Liz gave me some branches of twisted willow, salix tortuosa, and I thought that instead of strings around the wigwam of painted canes - these would serve the purpose better and look much more interesting too. It was easy to push them into the ground and weave them in and around the canes to make a fairly strong structure.
 
Of course the risk is that they will all root!

Part of the simple charm of the garden just now is the variety of green in the new leaves....

Inspired by Monet's garden and by the parterre at Garsington Manor near Oxford both of which I've been lucky enough to see at tulip time....

I'm already planning for next year. (Gardeners are like that!)

The photo is a bit of a cheat as I picked the tulips from another part of the garden and stood them among the forget-me-nots to see the effect. A useful way to plan - and next year I will definitely plant them together. I might keep the blue and the pink forget-me-nots separate and put a dark plum tulip with the blue....or a pale lemon? Or peach?

There is a moment every year in the garden when the bright yellow daffodils are over and the colour of the massed perennials is still to come, when all is calm. Many shades of green, and tiny flecks of blue forget-me-nots and blue and pink pulmonarias, pure white daffodils and creamy white tulips...It's like that little pause when the conductor raises his baton....before the symphony begins. An expectant hush.

A short quiet interlude on the blog too, till Tuesday...have a lovely week-end.

....of the floral kind.






My husband woke me early, because the sun was shining.

I made a pot of coffee, had a wander round the garden listening to the birdsong..

enjoying the warm sun on my back, and the remarkable colours of these little violas.

I don't know their name, but they must have a touch of Irish Molly in them.

I was glad of the early rise as after that first blissful hour or two, it rained for most of the rest of the day.

I love daffodils. Doesn't everyone?
 
The ones on the banner photographs are Thalia - so dainty fluttering under the pretty new leaves on the horizontal branches of Cornus controversa variegata, also known as the Wedding Cake Tree. I also grow Jenny and February Gold,  though the latter didn't flower till April this year.

I'm especially fond of the jonquils and tiny ones which follow on from the others. If I tell you that the 'vases' are actually little shot glasses you will have a better idea of their size! I grow Tete a Tete, Suzy, Triandus, Jack Snipe and Minnow among others.

Tete a Tete are not usually this tiny. These ones were bought already in flower, three bulbs squashed into a 7cm pot with very little soil. I shall put them into the garden for next year and they will be twice the size, though still miniature.

This little beauty is Segovia. I have used this photograph for one of my cards (see top right). The leaf is from Geranium Samobar which has lovely leaf markings.

Another little beauty in the garden today....