potting frenzy

the weather is clement and the seed season has started in earnest...........all available surfaces are covered in seed trays and various things are rocketing away................broad bean seedlings out into the veg bed today, absolutely beautiful and strong with huge roots...........sweet peas out too...........beds weeded and cleared, perennials moved...............i've planted out the dame's violet and moved a few mystery plants into a clump beside the dicentra.........i think one might be a coreopsis from last year but i haven't a clue what the others are. montbretia and aquilegia are coming up everywhere but i've been a good deal more ruthless this year about moving them to where i want them to be rather than letting them run riot. re-potted Norma's rose and the patio rose into David & Ian's turquoise pots and scattered in a few escholzia beside them. salads are out of the greenhouse..........we had a huge stir-fry with all the mibuna and pak choi, they did fantastically well and it was so lovely being able to nip out to the greenhouse in the early spring and pick fresh salad leaves. hope they'll do as well in the barrel..............i've made up a couple of pots for Maryam with nigella "Persian Jewels", and the little trio pot with three kinds of mint. put some pendula begonias into the planter seat...........various things from last year still alive but those will fill a gap. the scorched rose is still alive and i gave it a trim and feed to help it get over the trauma............wonder what the huge plant in the corner by the applemint will turn out to be. possibly a weed, but it does look a bit intentional..............might be a salvia but it will be a nice surprise whatever it is..................
front garden putting on a great spring display as usual, the new vinca has established well and is covered in lovely purple flowers.................nothing to do there really until all the bulbs die down, pleased to see the wood anemones looking so pretty..................
.............it has been quite mild but we had some proper frost this winter. paeonies in bud already which i think is early...............and could the new one i planted about four years ago be planning to flower at last? the patio apple trees have blossom, the new blackcurrant looks very happy and so do the whitecurrant and the gooseberry, so the fruit garden is shaping up well...........

the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la

............looking at the notes from last year, some things are blooming in the spring tra-la a bit earlier. the winter has been pretty cold with proper frost, but now that the clocks have changed it feels like spring and we've had a bliz today............only the second real full day's gardening of the year but what a difference a little bit of work makes................i tidied out the shed a few weeks ago and got rid of a lot of clutter...........some of the veg seeds are planted in the greenhouse and we're enormously proud of our winter salads which are only now beginning to bolt. everyone who comes to visit gets dragged into the greenhouse to admire the pak choi..........most stuff still just at the preparation stage but we are very much more organised than last year, thanks to having the greenhouse. but today was the first proper prowl round............so i hoed and weeded the fruit beds, moved the whitecurrant and Isabel's alpine strawberries and tied up the raspberry canes..................tidied the bit where the paeonies are and moved Helga the iris down to join the irises "Harmony", glad to see she's had some babies...........lots of things are just beginning to show, like the catmints, but lots in full swing already. and most exciting of all............there is FROGSPAWN in the pond!!...............