Hundreds and Thousands

Being away from home  for a few days invariably results in new discoveries in our gardens on our return, especially in spring and summer, although perhaps not as many as this rash of primula seedlings:

These are seedlings of Primula ‘Harlow Carr’, the originals having been grown from seed from the RHS, presumably directly from Harlow Carr itself. I recall having  grown just a few plants from the original seeds and every other attempt at growing primulas from seed have ended in failure; the above dense patch of seedlings clearly shows that they would rather choose their own sowing regime, thank-you-very-much. These self-seeders will grow very quickly into flowering size plants, so I shall pot up a number of them for distribution elsewhere or to sell at my open garden in June.

Returning home from my Mum’s on Wednesday was not a pleasant journey, with snow on the Scottish leg and heavy rain for much of the English leg, but we still managed to get home in the light which allowed a brief ramble around the garden before exhaustion packed us off to bed. It was certainly a joy to see buds on lots of the tulips, both in the shrub border and various pots; here is Tulip ‘Saké’ peeking out from behind a prettily floriferous Daphne mezereum ‘Rubra’:

And look at the gorgeous fresh foliage on this patch of aquilegia and dicentra/lamprocapnos, a surefire indicator that spring is well and truly here:

This patch of Anemone blanda in the hedge border have enjoyed some sunshine in the last couple of days, and in the woodland their cousins the wood anemones are now joining the primroses  and welcoming the first of the fritillaries:

Blue A blanda was added to the blue & white borders last Autumn and were joined this week by Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ and hyacinths planted out from a previous year’s pot:

Rhododendron ‘Cheers’ is often in flower at Christmas but not so last December; the first few buds are only just showing pink (left) and, would you believe it, are those buds I can see on the Winter Sunshine sweet peas in the greenhouse (right)? Now that IS exciting!

It’s certainly good to be back home again and getting on with all those gardening jobs that are piling up, weather permitting. Good too to be able to catch up with the goings-on of some of my blogging friends too.