Abundance ...

I'm enjoying what I think is known as a glut! A glut of sweet peas. I'm not complaining.  The colours are divine. The scent heavenly.

I have two cane wigwams of them on my allotment and at the moment, I am stripping them every other day and what I haven't room for, I am giving away to friends.

I don't really need any more words, I can let the photos do the talking, but suffice to say I am A Very Happy Girl.

Shades of blue ...

The colour in my garden goes through cyclical changes as it progresses through the seasons. Spring starts with the welcome splash of sunny yellow with the narcissi and daffodils. It then gives way to the riot of colour that is the tulips. These are followed by the swathe of purple of the alliums, drawing my eye to the bottom border away from the by now rather messy tulip foliage. My acorn-shaped alliums are in full bud still and yet to flower, as are my few remaining allium cristophii, ready to explode firework-like at any minute.

At the moment it is a calming blue, with these autumn-sown cornflowers flowering like mad and I can barely keep up with cutting them and bringing them indoors.

They are wild, straggly and I love them!

I also sowed nigella in the autumn and although not quite as tall as their neighbour, they are flowering prolifically too. They are also providing me with endless photo opportunities as I find their flowers fascinating.

They are great for cutting and when they go over, the seed heads are almost too good for throwing away.

I'm a little over-excited that soon I'll be cutting delphiniums too. I've said before that it feels such a luxury to be able to cut from my own garden and these were top of my list to have on the cutting patch.

Soon, the colour palette will change again, with hot pinks and acid brights emerging. I have the first roses out which have already added some zing to the border. What's flowering in your garden?

Ten things ...

• I have been drooling over tiny bowls in a heavenly shop. Alas, they didn't come home with me.

• I had the most amazing massage.

• No2 and I went to the zoo. Seven years. To say I was thrilled that Molly the giraffe approached the new bridge feature is an understatement. But, yes, that is a carrot on the right of the picture. Sadly not proffered by me though.

• No2 now wants a lizard. Possibly a bearded one ...

• My auriclas are jostling with my love of tulips as my favourite flower. The tulips need to be careful - I am fickle.

• I have been busy sewing a wonderful custom order for some kitchen accessories. Who knew double oven gloves and simple running stitches could give me (and hopefully my customer) so much pleasure.

• There are parts of my garden that are swathed in blue - some that I have planted intentionally ...

• ... and some that I have not.

• I have been enjoying other people's gardens. It looked very different from my last visit in September.
• My own garden and new allotment are keeping me busy and this gorgeous sunshine is renewing my energy in leaps and bounds. Have a great weekend - you'll find me outside!

Signs of spring ...

I had a much anticipated walk around Kew Gardens today with the lovely Kristina - I even remembered my 'big' camera! I'd forgotten how much it dislikes the chilly wind that was blowing all the delicate winter flowers around though and so, sadly, many of my {blurry} photos have disappeared into the recycling bin *sigh*.

Wrapped up in untold layers, and with coffee and cake in our tummies, we braved the cold, cold wind and grey skies.

I find it so cheering to see the emergence of the first signs of spring. My own garden is beginning to tease me with its new growth too. My last remaining patch of snowdrops is very thin on the ground as it seems to have established itself bang slap in the middle of a well-used doggy pathway beneath the big conifers.

Winter aconites are one of the first things to meet the challenge of the low temperatures of winter and early spring and I feared I had lost the few I had in my front garden, but today I spotted a solitary yellow bud and so I am hoping that mine are just extending their hibernation and getting up late. At Kew, however, there were lots of cheerful little clumps dotted around.

Swaying bravely in the wind, Kew's hellebores were the main casualty in the photography department today and this lovely lime green one was the best of a {very bad} lot. How I love them - a complete work of botanic art.

A new-to-me plant that is fast becoming a necessity somewhere in my garden, is witch hazel. I've absolutely no idea why they have been off my radar all these years of gardening. I adore the slightly scruffy flowers. This gorgeous yellow one caught my eye immediately so I can imagine what a focal point one will create if I planted one in the border at the back of my garden.

I love all the spring bulbs and cannot wait for my own garden to burst into colour over the coming months. I know for certain it is the anticipation of my tulips, narcissi, anemones and alliums that will get me through February now. There are signs of spring all around.

Right now...

• I'm wishing I could get on with some crafty-type things but my right hand is still feeling very odd and uncomfortable due to the pins and needles from that trapped nerve. I am starting physio next week. My right arm feels like my left one! Do you know what I mean? It can do things, but not properly. Awkward. Let's look at the evening sun shining on the cosmos instead.

• My new eagerly awaited magazine fell through my letter box yesterday. Have you heard? Do go buy it, it is an absolute delight. The production is fabulous and the styling, well too stylish for words! I took advantage of the brilliant subscription offer of the first three issues for a fiver. It's still available, I think.

• There was only one place to sit and read it at my leisure - the hammock. The simplest of pleasures. Made even more special by being surrounded by the birds coming down to the feeders, for their tea. The tits and finches are not put off by the thuggish behaviour of the parakeets. For the first time this year, I also saw a pair of Nuthatches coming to feed on the sunflower hearts - what a delight, one of my favourite birds.

Checking me out!

• My new hens are settling in nicely. Still a bit timid but they are getting used to me going in the run each day with lettuce or some other kitchen scraps treats. Last week, my skyline hen started laying and has presented me with the most gorgeous of blue eggs every day since.

Violet, my Bovans Nera hen

• I made a sour dough loaf and had a delicious lunch of poached eggs on toast. This has become a little tradition of mine - to poach the first eggs. 

• It is the simplest things in life that give me the most pleasure. What's yours?

Nurture…

A while back, I bought a collection of scented pelegoniums. Celia had tweeted about them and I couldn't resist. I was giddy on the success of the cuttings I had taken last year on my cutting garden course.




From three tiny bits of well established plants, I now have three fabulously healthy plants. One is in my conservatory and has loved the year-round warmth. It flowered in about March and I'm loving the scent that gets released whenever you brush past it. The ones in the garden have only been flowering the last couple of months.




The flowers are just delightful. The leaves smell of Turkish Delight. Seriously!




I digress. My plug plants duly arrived and I potted them on as instructed, tucking them in a sheltered spot so they could begin their journey into lovely healthy plants. Then I went away on holiday and that was the week when Britain got its summer and the mercury whizzed towards the 30° marker on the thermometer. Unfortunately, my sheltered spot went unnoticed by my Mum who was doing my watering and on my return my poor tiny plants looked as though they had reached the point of no return. I could have cried. First aid measures had to be acted upon so I decided to bring them all in to the conservatory and see if the constant warmth could do it's magic. I lost 3 out of the original 12.




Fast forward on four weeks and my careful nurturing and words of encouragement seem to be working. I have some delicate flowers on a couple…








…and lots of tiny new leaves on all but one of my charges.




You can read about Celia's success here and her quirky display, which I think looks fabulous and would love to have outside my back door.

Right now...

• I am enjoying this tiny bit of sunshine we have had in the last couple of days and the way it make the colour of the flowers in the garden more intense.

• I am making room in my day for a little meditative knitting and my new shawl is coming on very nicely.

• I am reading this, as recommended by Nancy, and am loving it already and I'm only a couple of chapters in. It fits in beautifully with Sue's post about the very same subject.

• I am embracing new colours on my feet.

• I am machine-quilting my first queen-sized quilt. My arms are killing me.

• I am rewarding myself with jugfuls of daisies that have mysteriously appeared all over my front garden. Thank you Mother Nature.

Bejewelled...

The rain came with a vengeance late yesterday afternoon. It fell so hard it bounced. I hoped it would bounce right back into the earth and judging by the greenness this morning, I would say it certainly did.




Within minutes of it falling, the sun was back out giving the garden that bejewelled look that I so love to capture.





My Precious Love roses are out and are looking and smelling divine. I'm wondering why I've never thought to have roses in my garden before. Idiot.






The irises took a bit of a battering but I'm relieved to see they have recovered their regal poise this morning.






My sweet peas have now dried off and I have picked my first small posy.






Combined with some mint and peppermint in a tiny tin, their beauty is the best start to the day.