SPRING WEATHER

We're having the most beautiful spring weather here in the south of England - more like summer really. The grass in my garden is growing fast and looking lush and hopeful - later on in the summer it will begin to dry out as the pine trees drink all the moisture but for now it's looking just lovely.

PEONY SHOOTS

The beginnings of this year's peonies are about ten inches high. I love the huge, blowsy flowers but they get very heavy so need lots of support which will have to go in soon.

I'm beginning to get a bit fed up with posting photos of flowers. Will have to get out and about with my camera again soon and find some other interesting things.

MAGNOLIAS

My lovely little magnolia tree is just blooming. It's a stellata type of magnolia, not the big waxy flowers. This is more delicate and the flowers don't last long before the petals drop, after which the tree comes into leaf for the rest of the summer.

RENAISSANCE

Everywhere I look now I see spring, regrowth, renaissance. This is such an optimistic season even though it's still raining pretty well non-stop. The signs are all over the place and I'm finding it very difficult to find any of my lovely dead things now!

SNOWDROPS

A wonderful sign of spring. We used to have a huge amount of snowdrops in our garden but needed the ground where they lived to build a shed. So I dug them all up and transplanted them at the bottom of the garden. It took years for them to gain a hold again, but this year there are at least half a dozen clumps down there.

STRAINING

Signs of spring coming
Hydrangea looks up to the sky
Its buds straining

IT'S COMING!

...Spring, that is. I was out in the fields today photographing more of my beloved 'dead things' when I noticed that not everything was dead and dying any more.  I saw these beautiful buds looking so hopeful and ready to go that my heart leapt and I began to look for more signs of approaching spring...

and saw these beautiful catkins (or at least I think they're catkins!) ...

and these buds reaching for the sky which, for the first time for weeks, was blue.