We've been in Norfolk for some of the Easter weekend visiting family and clocking up a second visit of the year to one of our favourite counties. I was expecting bulbs to have sprung up in dad's garden but I didn't expect there to be quite so many tulips. The garden was full of red and yellow tulips, everywhere. Even among the chard.
They certainly knew how to find the sun in the garden too. Their petals were glistening in the sunlight, even this one that looks as if it should be in the shade.
Masquerading amongst other flowers - or vegetables - or even jumping over the flower bed edges seems to be a speciality of dad's tulips.
I was keen to see how the "top down" photography angle would work for tulips, and both red and yellow varieties obliged, boldly showing off their dark centres
In one part of the garden, it looks as if some cross-fertilisation has gone on. The red tulips have yellow edges and the yellow one red tinges, and I quite like the look of these. I'm assuming they've done this themselves as these were the only ones that weren't true colours, but who knows for sure.
And a trip around dad's garden is never complete without seeing any pink flowers, and this time is no different. Dad's columnar apple tree is laden with blossom, very pink blossom. There's so much the lower branches are almost touching the ground. And look at the colour of the soil, it's such a different colour to mine, and way less stony.
Out the front the clematis that I spot all over Norfolk is already in flower, and I think it'll be in flower for a long time yet looking at the amount of buds looking as if they're about to burst.
Like many gardens, mine included, the foliage is growing strongly even though there's been less rain than usual. The leaves below are from a poppy, which looks as if it's going to be huge!
The lupin leaves with their distinctive shape are also springing up around the garden. I'd love to be able to grow lupins in my own garden, but my snail population are rather keen on them too. I've tried growing them in pots, but then invariably there'll be a hot spell and I'll lose them through lack of watering. The toads in our garden do help to keep the snail population down, or at least I hope they do - I have a mental image of being knee-deep in snails without the toads which isn't a great image, but maybe there's just too many snails for my toads.
This weekend I saw a couple of flowers I'd not seen before, one in dad's garden and another in his neighbours. And just so you know I spotted the neighbours flower when I went to my car and not because I was loitering with my camera ready - just saying. So here's the pretty star shaped flower in dad's garden, I'm not sure I've seen it before, and I'm not sure what it is either, so if you know please leave me a comment and let me know what mystery flower number 1 is.
MYSTERY FLOWER NUMBER 1
The neighbour's flower is mystery flower number 2 and it's a lilac and egg yolk yellow combination, which is unusual enough anyway, and a combination you might question if you didn't see the picture. But it seems to work, but again I'm not sure what it is. So if you know what mystery flower number 2 is then please let me know.
MYSTERY FLOWER NUMBER 2
And if you know what both of them are, I'll be super impressed.
