What's growing

I had today all planned out. Yesterday I did a whole heap of clearing at the polytunnel and at the greenhouse area so that today I could concentrate on the actual garden and the mess that it's become. However today it has decided to rain! It rained all last night as well so even if the stuff stops very soon the garden will be too mushy to work with and I'll just end up making things worse. Great!

The other day I headed into the garden with my camera to look for a bloom or two that I could submit to GBBD (Garden Bloggers Bloom Day) but to my dismay I found nothing, not a single smidging of colour anywhere. I'm certainly going to have to work on this and have decided to start looking into Spring plants that I can add to the garden this year for future spring indulgence.
What I did manage to find though was a lot more new growth than I realised was there. Take a cursory look at my borders and you'll see dead, dead, dead everywhere, nothing appears to be wanting to wake up, however when I got really up close and personal I was pleasantly surprised.

This one surprised me the most. These are Lily bulbs I planted last year and not only did they survive the winter outside but they're already shooting back into growth - ahead of the ones in my polytunnel.

This next one is a self seeded Leycesteria Formosa. I love this plant because it does exceptionally well up here and self seeds so easily, which means no having to take cuttings (which I'm crap at btw).

Leycesteria Formosa aka Pheasantberry bush/ Himalayan honeysuckle.

These aquilegia (Columbine) are beautiful when in flower but they have self seeded literally everywhere now and have become so much of a nuisance that their few weeks of beauty pale in comparison. I'll be doing some serious clearing of them this year.

Aquilegia - gorgeous flowers but self seeds prolifically.

This Rhododendron never fails to provide a riot of blooms every year. A bargain from 'Lidls' a few years back it's again smothered in buds.

I seriously dislike this next plant. I got a small piece of it many years ago from my SIL (who warned me of it's desire to roam - which I ignored of course) and now I would love nothing more than to eradicate it from the garden entirely. It's lovely to look at and makes a great ground cover plant but like so many grasses it is amazingly invasive and tenacious and I spend   waste so much time trying to control it it's ridiculous.

The dreaded unknown grass. Grows to about 6" but spreads for ever.

One of my all time favourite staple garden plant is the Hardy Geranium aka Cranesbill. I have just 6 different varieties in my garden but they can always be replied on to provide splendid flowers even when the salt wind and rain mid summer has obliterated others.
For unusual colour I like 'Johnsons Blue' as it's the one true blue flower I've ctually seen. I have an unknown pink variety which loves any type of soil and situation and provides a neat mat of colour from late spring to winter (though after a couple of years it tends to get very untidy, invasive and straggly looking).
But my absolute favourite so far is Geranium x. Oxonianum, I was astounded when I first saw the lovely star shaped flowers of this neat clump forming perennial and I immediately obtained some for my garden.
Unfortunately - for now - you'll have to take my word for how splendid this plant is going to be

Geranium x.Oxonianum

Cordylines are not a plant I would say I 'need' in my garden. I've grown them twice in pots and although the Green one is still alive it looks decidedly unhappy (note to self I must rescue the cordyline this year) and the Red one died (I think the Red ones are more tender).
So I was very surprised to find that one had self seeded in amongst my Iris bulbs a couple of years ago. I would dearly love to move it to somewhere more pleasing to myself but I think this is one time when I am going to leave it where nature intended (OK I admit, I have no idea how to move one without killing it).

Just look at the state of ground! And yet this is the position it chose to live.

There are heaps more plants started to spring into life again such as The Weigela, Mock Orange, Lupins, Roses, Hydrangeas, Iris's etc etc and it certainly gives me the hope that Spring and finally Summer are just around the corner.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

I wanted to take part in the 'Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - March 2013" over at 'May Dreams Gardens' and as the whole idea is to photograph what is blooming in your garden at that particular moment I eagerly headed outside with the camera.
Guess what's bloomin in my garden right now?  (I interpret this to mean a flower of some kind)
Nothing, nada, zilch!
I was however quite suprised to see so much new growth on many of the plants because I had assumed everything was still dormant (it looked it from a distance), but no flowers or even a flower bud to show for my efforts. Darn it!
All is not lost though because I noticed this little statement on carols blog "It’s easy to join in. Just post on your own blog about what's blooming in your garden right now, outdoors or indoors. You can include pictures, lists, common names, botanical names, whatever you’d like to do to showcase your blooms."
I may not have anything flowering outside but inside I have some tulips bought for me by my daughter. Granted they're only flowering because they're shop bought stems but they do have a flower, so technically I have something to post - which is a good thing because I've waited a fair few days to join in with this.

So here's my bloomin flowers

Hopefully next month things will have caught up a little but I guess that is going to depend on whether we suffer with a cold snap that could very well damage those plants that are trying to wake up after the winter.

Here comes the snow again....

Oh dear, the snow arrived today. It's not much of a show but enough to stop me from wanting to get out there

It's not all gloom and snow though. I took a quick peek in the heated propagator in the greenhouse and all the Tomato seeds have peeped through. I am so glad I decided to dabble with a heated propagator

Normally I wouldn't even have been able to sow the seeds for another month or so and even then they would take weeks to germinate due to the lack in temperature - fingers crossed I am actually going to get some ripe fruit this year.
I think I'll make another sowing in a couple of weeks though just in case these ones turn out to be too early and don't make it.

I also got round to cleaning out that workshop/Greenhouse the other day.
It's never going to look as tidy and organised as I would like because it's just too small to serve the 2 purposes I need it for but at least it's useable again now and if I sort out some shelving on that back wall then I think I can clear it even more

Before & After

Before & After

Like I said it's not brilliant but it works.