April Mornings

It's a great time of the year to go away for a couple of days, if for no other reason than things in the garden are changing so quickly and there is so much to see when you get back.
 The cherry blossom is drifting off the branches and scattering over the lawn; one spring feature is over but there are other delights queuing to take its place.

 A  rich mauve auricula which has its place in my 'garden jewelry box' - an old ceramic sink we found in the garden. This plant is tough enough to survive along with some little cyclamen and primroses with the barest minimum of watering and weeding.

 Freckle Face violets which combine two childhood memories.  Violets were the first flower  I asked for garden space to grow and had  success with. The second  memory is dipping an old toothbrush in paint and then rubbing a thumb across it  to make spatter patterns and stencils.

A tub of tulips that this year have managed to evade the jaws of the local population of roe deer. This time last year absolutely all the buds were well on the way to becoming venison. I have planted some chives in the tub now, partly so that their purple flowers will complement the fringing on the Shirley tulips but mainly so that every time I pass, I can crush a few of the leaves in the hope that the onion odour will put the deer off the whole tub. May be it has worked, may be they have just found better fodder in the neighbours' gardens; I'll let you be the judge.

And then proving that the snowdrops and daffodils were merely the opening rounds of the bulb season, the beautiful scilla, hanging on to the dew.

 The fruit blossom is far from over as the crab apple shows.

 The beautiful fondant colours of apple blossom with their wonderful scent.

A garden  with so much to be grateful for in spite of the weeds and the work. Sometimes the real gems of this patch take some seeking out, like the bluebells that appear each year in one of the wilder places, enough to remind me that it is time to gather up my camera and head for the woods.