Clematis

 Clematis are easy to grow climbing plants, which add height and colour to your garden. They use virtually no room as you just shove them in near the base of whatever it is you wish them to climb up. You can even plant them in pots next to walls and then climb them up trellis or wiring. In my garden they climb up either obelisks, trellis or over my balcony and up through my wisteria. Brilliant flowers for no real effort, though water any in pots in dry weather.

A sunny spot with a glass of wine.

Mostly tulips

Aqueligia

A very busy day to end a very busy week.
But as my poem Perfect endings states,

Tulips and allium

The perfect end to a long week

 Sitting in a patch of sunshine

With a glass of wine

And time to unwind.

Allium

Chives

Mostly Bella

So I am doing just that and admiring the garden.

May's garden treasures. Malvern, Worcestershire.

Tulip tarda

Tulips

Tulip and daffodil display

 May is the month when the garden really starts to come into its own. Colour appears everywhere, blossom on trees, clematis climbing, flowers in the tubs and flowers beds. The sights and smells are a treat for the senses.

Cherry blossom

Not only is the overall effect magnificent, but each individual bloom is a work of art in itself.  The detail is particularly easy to see in the detail of the aqualigias structure and contrasting coloured petals.

Clematis

Aqualigia purple

Aqualigia pink

Hosta

Purple tulip and allium flower bed

London blue

Yellow poppy

Tulips, spring colour.

Daffodil and tulip display

Tulip Tarda

 Tulips are a fantastically reliable bulbous perennial. Native in southern Europe/ Israel/ Palestine, Northern Africa and Northern China. Huge variety of heights ranging from 4-28 inches tall, but always with only one flower per stem.

Pink and purple tulip

Forever linked to the Netherlands, ( which they don't come from) due to its commercial cultivation there since the times of the Ottoman Empire. The country now sells over three million bulbs annually.

Red and yellows

Personally I like how bright and reliable they are. Reds, yellows, pinks and purples. Whatever the weather a dry or wet year previously, there they are still every spring.

Display in the Rose gardens

Spring colours, Malvern, Worcestershire

Primrose in April

Nature is an infinitely more precise designer than man. Mother natures hand considers not only the individual and his niche, but also how he is influenced by. and in turn his influence upon, all other species around him. It is in fact the very differences between each flower species from one another that earns it his niche, (the same of course is true for birds/ seaweeds/ fish / big cats etc).

Forsythia

This is what makes large similarities more curious. Why are all the early spring native flowers, such as aconites, primrose, daffodil, forsythia etc, all yellow ? Why are all the most wild forms of fruit trees in spring, like cherry, plum, gage, apple, pear and hawthorn, have white blossom ? And again why do the vast majority of the second flush of native flowers, anemone, forget-me-not and bluebell all have blue flowers ?

Daffodil wood in April, (Newent)

Forget-me-nots, today by Malvern stocks

My theory is that there are so few pollinating insects about early in the growing season that all the flowers have to appeal to the broad swathe of insects, and it is beneficial to all if they use the same colour to advertise that their pollen is ready.

One of the very few white naturally occurring bluebells

We have deciphered the bee's dance and it communicates not only the distance and direction to the best flowers, but also their colour, to the bees companion's. We know then that insects make a note of the colour of the best flowers,

Later in the year with pollinating insects being far more numerous, flowers can appeal to a specific few insect types and so more varieties of colour can occur.

Bluebells today between Gardiners Quarry and Black Hill Malvern

Hellebore and Daffodils

Hellebore

The snow still hasn't gone. A blanket of four or five inches still covers everything.

On close inspection my hellebore and daffodils have still survived.

Hellebore are also called Christmas Roses, and come from the Balkan region of Europe and so are quite frost resistant.  Some purist prefer the white type, but I like a bit of colour so the brighter and more purple/red the better.

Daffodil, or Narcissus may seem very ordinary plants to us these days as the bulbs are so cheap to purchase an.d once planted flower reliably ever year. They once were prized for their great beauty, which is why they share name with the character Narcissus, from Greek mythology who was so obsessed with his own beauty that he drowned in a pool as he stared at his own reflection. For me though the cheery yellow of the common varieties reminds me of childhood and the scent is delightful. 

At least the cat's seem to have finally got used to going out in the snow.

Daffodil

My two cat's being brave.