Friday, April 30, 2010

Colours of April

First, a rare glimpse into our tiny front garden, showing the Berberis in flower and the Cotinus just coming in to leaf (Our front garden is just 5 feet deep):

And then at the far margins, here is the back garden hedgerow just coming in to leaf, Hazels both green and bronze with the May beside it:In amongst our fruit is this tiny blueberry, now about 4 years old, showing a decent amount of blossom this year:
... And blossom on one of the apples, I think this is the Egremont Russet:

Through Leigh I heard about Sue's bid to share seasonal colour. At the end of December I rushed around our urban back garden here in the East Midlands of England and took several photographs. However they have yet to see the light of day on the internet.

So, here in recompense are some colours of April as seen around our garden:
(They seem to have come out in a random order in this post, or I'm just out of practice at blogging).
Here are some things to celebrate.

The first flowers on this grass in the pond. In the next stage the black plumes will turn golden with pollen. Coincidentally, at least one neighbouring cat has been eating this grass rather than others this week and sicking it up round our garden.
The first fronds on this self seeded fern by the pond, and the first lily-of-the-valley flowers, no obvious fragrance yet:
The new leaves and flowers on the Epimedium just outside the back door. This rather cunning view doesn't show much of the darker older leaves that I have usually cut down by now:
Pretty much the last of the ornamental cherry flowers. We finally got some decent April showers today on the last day of the month! Just a touch of rain makes these go brown:
A week ago the Magnolia Stellata was in full bloom. Today the heavy downpours removed nearly all the petals: