Garden: Spring Flowers

A few spring flowers

Having spent five years trying to eradicate lesser celandine from a dark and dank narrow north facing border under a bay window I now understand the beauty of this earliest of spring flowers.  Now that I'm gardening in a hedge and woodland bordered field, I get to see the plants that have come in from the wild and established themselves just where they like it.  The celandine creeps out from underneath the hedges and trees; no wonder it loved that horrible dark bed in Oxford.  I should have learned to love it as it was just about the only thing that would grow in that space.

The early bees and butterflies are really appreciating the early flowers - there are an awful lot of dandelions out there too - although the loudest busy hum is still coming from the lonicera fragrantissima, the sweet breath of spring.

We have been here for four years now and each year I have planted around fifty daffodil and crocus bulbs.  This year all but one of the daffs has come up blind and we only have a tiny clump of purple crocus.  Where the crocus in my mother's garden have marched out from flower border to claim half of the lawn, mine have rapidly retreated from their starting point until only a few remain.  

I love the shadow of the flower centre captured in these two photos.

My joints are still bad with the Lyme arthritis so it is nice for something snapped 'blind' at the end of an arm to come out quite well!