A spot of sun in dad's garden

In that milder weather recently I managed to pop out and take a few pictures of dad’s garden. Everything looks so much better in the sun and his crocuses were no exception. One area of his garden is carpeted with crocuses, which he tells me he’s going to try and move some of them so they can be seen from the conservatory. His plan is to plant and grow them in a triangular shape, and I’m looking forward to seeing how he gets on.

Luckily he knows he won’t move all of them, and having seen them getting ready to flower this year, that’s good to know. I think they’ll look spectacular growing in the grass, rather than his veg bed - although they look pretty good there, don’t they?

I had a peek through the windows of the greenhouse not wanting to disturb the temperatures inside. The scent of the hyacinth will I’m sure have filled the space, and only just now I’ve noticed the cigarello-like leaves of tulips in a pot to the right of them.

I read somewhere, I can’t remember where, that moss is in this year. That’s good news for my garden and good news for dad’s too though I’m sure he’s less soppy about clearing moss out of the greenhouse gutters than I am. It looks pretty good close up, this year we’ve got more moss in our drive than ever before, and I’m less impressed with that.

Dad’s olive tree is thriving, a few years ago dad was all for cutting it down as it was getting out of hand. I’m glad he didn’t but I do think it’s possibly the only olive topiary for a good few miles.

The leaves are those of Lords and Ladies, some of which have migrated to my garden, but the bud doesn’t belong to them. It looks more lily-like, I meant to look again on our more recent visit, but didn’t remember to. I’m sure though that the don’t belong to the same plant, as much as they look like they might.

The glow of the sun was entirely visible as you can see in the next couple of photos. The first is of what looks like it’s going to be a very large foxglove, nestled right in the corner of the bed, but so large that it’s having to tumble over the border.

And as this post is crocus in the sun heavy, what other photo would I end on? Can’t you feel the warmth just shining though?

Roses and quite a change in dad's garden

We were in Norfolk this weekend and it's the first time I got to see dad's garden and many of the changes he's been making. And there's been quite a few which means his garden looks quite different but will be easier to maintain. With the amount of conifers and bushes he's removed it hasn't can't have been an easy task and even though a chainsaw was involved - and I'm sure enjoyed - I do wish he'd taken things a bit slower. 

Some of the larger climbing rose bushes have also gone, but plenty remain and were still in flower for our visit. I think he pretty much has every colour going though, with plenty of pink, quite a few yellow and some orange and peach creeping in too.

It wasn't just the flowers providing colour, just look at this (most likely a) phormium. With the sun on it, the colour is just fantastic.

There's still some growing space, but not as much, and the growing space is closest to the kitchen, which makes a lot of sense. The apple tree, like ours on the allotment, was laden with fruit.

The big change in dad's garden is some of the smaller beds have been removed and grass seed - and grass - has replaced them. The beds that held the large conifers have also been reduced in size with grass replacing space there too. 

And it's growing well.  There's plenty of birds in dad's garden, hence the netting in the photo above. But look in the photo below and see how luscious it's quickly become.

There's still more roses though.

And a pile of stones. We have a lot of stones in our garden, so perhaps dad's competing. Although his stones have a prettier Norfolk hue than ours do.  I think I know the plan for these, but I'll save that just in case I'm wrong.

Lupins also do well in dad's garden and throughout his garden the flowers are just about still there, but it's clear to see they're already set on providing plenty of seeds for next year.

And a final rose. This one with a story. It's a standard rose in the front garden and it was large and a mesh of branches. Dad was considering replacing it but I managed to persuade him to try pruning it first. I'm not sure he was convinced, but he gave it a go. It's at an awkward height and was tricky to get in and under to find the green stems, so with nothing to lose it was dug up, trimmed more easily and put back, just as if nothing had happened.

It's obviously not the textbook way to prune roses, but it seems to be happy and it appears quite happy, with new leaves and even some flowers, which just goes to show plants can be hardier than we expect them to be!

Tulip-mania in Dad's garden

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.