Our changeable spring weather

Friday we had 28C and Saturday snow right down on the hills around us and today again the most beautiful mild day with blue sky all day. There was a slight frost this morning so got up early and put sheets of newspaper over the apricot which is just setting its fruit for the first year. Did the same with the tomatoes, even though they are in the glasshouse, but it is unheated.
Spent all day out there pottering, and doing a lot of little jobs that needed doing.
Cleaned out the fish pond, and found 2 goldfish that had not shown themselves all winter, do they hibernate does anyone know? this is our first experience with goldfish.
Completed planting around the pool with astibles, hostas,small kniphofia, Little Maid,and broke up my pink Dierama, and put some to hang over the water. Hopefully I should get a pleasing result.
Pricked out some lettuce seedlings I had grown, both heirloom types that did well for us last year, Drunken Woman and Four Seasons.
The image I am putting here is a little wood anemone and a small primula, I thought they looked very good together.

Prunus Awanui

I think this is my favourite flowering cherry, this is its 4th year, and is so beautiful, and the bees think so too

Days are getting warmer

Had a lovely day in the garden today, finding it a lot easier to deal with now we have put the pea straw down....don't particularly like the look of it, but enables me to spray the weeds as they appear and then I just have to weed close to the plants by hand. Much better on the old back.
I think I said in a previous post in the autumn that I planted my tulips and my hyacinths in pots and then placed them around the garden as they came into flower in the spring. Well that is working well as I'm sure you will notice in the photos. The hyacinths are just wonderful, the perfume just awesome as you pass them.
The first flowering cherry, Awanui, is just coming out, and the honey bees did not take long to find it. Hope they find the Yellow plum and the greegage as well, as we are hoping for a good crop this year. The fruiting cherries have nice fat buds on them, and the apricot has just finished flowering so watching out for a frost and will have to rush out and cover it.
I had a friend give to me, 4 supermarket shopping bags full of assorted daffodil bulbs that she took out in the autumn. They are all sprouting, and should nhave been in the ground a long time ago, but am sure some of them will survive late planting and will flower next year.

Spring has certainly sprung in the last week

Spent some time going around the garden with the camera yesterday after coming home from town with 3 new shrubs to plant....Camellia japonica called waterlily, Viburnum maresii, and Osmanthus delavayii. Of course now looking for places to put them!!
Aren't daffodils just the most wonderful bulbs at this time of the year? So cheerful and bright. However many I have, I always want more.
Thought you might like to see this cauliflower which grows during the winter, and so colourful on the plate. Taste and texture more like brocolli. Grew these from seed and will be doing it again.

More rain

Two more days of rain, looking so miserable outside, the daffodils which have been brave enough to show their happy faces have been rained on so hard that they are looking into the dirt.
I see that the Moorpark apricot is showing bright pink in the buds, 1st season and hope to get some fruit this year, will have to watch for a late frost though, as we will surely get one or two more.
I see the Leucodendron argenteum has not been touched by the frost this year, this will be its fourth year with us, so looks like it has settled in and is mature enough to handle the frost, hope so, as is a beautiful sight when mature.
Found this little coryadalis braing the weather.

Signs of spring at last!

 
At long last spring is coming, these are the first of the crocuses, and it is quite mild this morning so they are showing themselves off.
Have not been blogging for sometime, as have been unwell, but now spring is with us again, feeling a lot better, and hope to be blogging regularly again. Also computer had a bad virus which is most frustrating.

New piece of garden

Some time ago my ever-patient hubby told me, "no more" when I suggested we dig up some more lawn for another garden bed.
I decided though to strike while the iron was hot when I had a birthday recently, and told him the only thing I wanted was another little bit of garden.
I really needed it to plant a couple or so more azaleas and also some roses that I have ordered, they will be coming in the next few weeks, and really have no idea where they are going....but I do now.
This is the work in progress, the azaleas in the background are the lovely double white, Pavlova, underplanted with pale pink hyacinths, and anemones.
Hopefully this should be a colourful corner once spring comes around.