Spring into life!

Slowly the garden is waking up. Little sprigs of blue grape hyacinth's, daffodils and crocuses appear above ground. The Rhodondendrons are full of fat buds and the first perennials, like Sedum, are showing their tiny leaves. The branches of my Hazel tree are adorned with catkins. The pollen is making me sneeze a lot! I was amazed to see the flowers of the white Helleborus, lighting up a dark corner of our garden. We also have a red variety, but we have to wait until March for it's flowers to appear.

It gives so much energy working in the garden this time of year. Wrapped up in my warmest winter coat, a thick woollen scarf and my thermo socks, it makes the low temperatures and the sometimes icy wind a bit more bearable. We have been clearing up the garden, getting rid of most of the leaves and pruning several trees. We brought barrowful after barrowful to our compost heap and cleaned the birdhouses. I also spread some organic manure over the garden and smelled like a cow afterwards! I should have watched the direction of the wind when I spread the manure ;-).

At a nearby garden centre I bought some left over spring flowering bulbs at a bargain price. They had to be planted before December, but I will just give it a try. I put the bulbs in some teracotta pots, covered them with straw and now keep my thumbs up!

As always I bought far too many seeds. It will be difficult to decide what's going in the garden.  At the moment I have a slight tendency toward more flowers and less vegetables, but I am not sure yet. Have you done any work in your garden? Is there anything in bloom yet?

Enjoy your wednesday!

Lieve groet, Madelief