Making plans. Worcestershire.

I love this time of the year. My garden looks a little scruffy in places as things start to die back. Tidying up in the garden is so satisfying as you know it will stay looking great for months.

On top of that the spring bulbs and winter bedding are in the shops. Lidl is particularly brilliant for bulbs this week. A very satisfactory morning spent planting bargain bulbs means I am looking forward to more hyacinths, tulips, crocus, and allium next spring. Deep joy.

Beauty. Malvern, Worcestershire.

Allium, poppy and fritillery display

Poppy and allium display

 The early spring flowers colours have disappeared but still many of them are beautiful. I love the fat seed pods and find a real satisfaction in collecting the seeds once the pods brown and split. There is nothing like knowing next year there will be even more beautiful flowers because you collected the seed and prevented it from being wasted on the path or in the lawn. Some flowers though bring even more joy as once the seed is gone and the remains have browned and dried, they are perfect architectural wonders of nature, eco friendly flower displays which don't need to be watered, just put somewhere safe and admired for months to come.

Allium with fat green seed pods

Poppy flowers

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

Blossom, Worcestershire.

Hawthorn Blossom also known as May Blossom

Pink Cherry Blossom

 I love blossom. Hawthorn Blossom is known as May Blossom and according to a little rhyme you shouldn't start digging your garden and planting things until the May blossom is out. 

White Cherry Blossom

I think what I love is the promise. Blossom means that spring is finally here and there should be no more frosty nights. Blossom promises a summer with cherries, plums, greengages, strawberries and over soft fruit and an autumn of  apples and pears.

Pear Blossom

I am hoping to have so much fruit this year that as well as just eating it straight from the tree that I can get a bit culinary with the excess. A freezer full of pies and crumbles, a larder full of jams, and some cider and perry. Yum.

Plum Blossom

Greengage Blossom

Rose garden, Rhododendrons, Malvern, Worcestershire.

Formal Bed

White rhodedendron detail

 The daffodil have faded and the roses in the rose garden are a long way away from flowering.

Red Rhodedendron

There is still a lot to see though. The formal spring bed full of primrose varieities and tulips is a delight. The rhodedendrons though are what I came to see. Only a few of the bushes are in flower, the rest will follow over the next few weeks. Already though there is white, lilac, cream, cerise and scarlet examples to see. 

Cerise rhodedendron

Lilac rhodedendron

Magnolis in Malvern, Worcestershire.

 Magnolia, named after the French botanist Pierre Magnol, originated in the Americas and Asia. They come in yellow, purple, white and pink varieties, but most of the ones you see around here are either white or pale pink.


Magnolia, the tree
Much maligned by paint charts
And bland interior design.
Fine, waxy petals,
Of oriental providence
Light and exotic.

They are in every street and park a beacon of exquisite beauty at this time of year.

Bluebells, Old Hills, Callow End, Worcester.

Okay so the dandylions were lovely too

Today I took my friends to see the bluebell wood. I was thrilled to see how fabulous they looked. The bluebells are all open and such a deep pure blue. If you have time and live close enough it is the place to be. here a just a few pictures of them.

Sunsets in spring.

In summer the sunsets are wonderfully expansive pink and orange skies.

We are not there yet, but this spring we have had some moodily sunsets, splashed with streaks of purple and pink.

Stormy looking clouds and indigo blues they are beautiful in a gothic sort of way.

 Stark black trees show off their fine fan like branches against this moody backdrop.