THE GARDEN IN MARCH

The garden is beginning to look bright and colourful though after the Lord Mayor's coach comes the dustcart - that is, once the flowers have died there are weeks of straggly leaves to contend with. Never mind, enjoy them while they're here!

Although it doesn't show too well, there are daffs all the way down to the shed which you can just see part of through the trellis - and here's the Bottom Garden.

I was surprised at how many hyacinths I have dotted around - just one blue one surviving under the decorative vinenear the house.

I try to buy a few good bulbs every year from a grower but lapsed last year. These are a strong beetroot colour named Woodstock, which are now about 3 years old and getting tired. They'll have to go into the garden when they've finished flowering. There are white narcissus with them but they look very weary - and dry.

Next door has an almost 6 month old Bengal cat. The children have named it Kisses because they have a friend whose cat is Cuddles... It doesn't have fur as such, it's a very soft, short pelt because someone in the household is allergic to cat fur. It's just discovered the badger's pop-hole under the fence so suddenly appears to investigate in my garden. He's very interested in the goldfish so, although there's only one space to get through the netting, he's already found it.

He's balanced on a pot of houseleeks beside the pond...

Plenty of pulmonaria are out now, pretty blue and pink flowers on the same plant, which has spotted leaves. These are supposed to look like lungs, hence the common name of lungwort. The flower pot is covering the emergence point of a clematis climbing through the beech hedge just out of shot. On the right is a fuchsia magellanica (Lady's eardrops) given to me many years ago by a now-deceased friend. It has dainty tubular flowers late in the summer but all that's visible at the moment is a collection of dead stems. But - all the leaves in the photo are unwanted but un-get-at-able bluebells! The hole under the fence is the second pophole allowing badgers and cats to track across my garden from those on either side. Ah, well, they were here first...the badgers, that is.
These are pulmonaria flowers


and these are white ones on the other side of the garden... I keep pots which have cracked in the frost and use them to protect clematis stems, as above, but this plant has died.

My Art Group friend's daughter is moving house and doesn't need this cat kennel any longer - would I like it? I don't know who or what will use it but I've put a piece of white card inside to show mucky footprints...It's against the fence and so out of the prevailing wind direction.

While I was scraping dead oak leaves from this Middle Garden section somehow I got tangled in the leaf rake and subsided gently on to the pile of leaves - unfortunately I have trouble getting up! Gillian was there, luckily for me, but I can't get up from a sitting position; turned on to my knees but even so I was afraid I'd pull Gillian over. She fetched the fork from the 'other' shed, rammed it into the garden so, using that as a prop on one side and a helping hand/arm on the other I managed to climb to my feet, eventually. No damage done - don't get old!!!

The End Garden again with more hyacinths, just pale pink ones this time, 'going over' hellebores, daffs and forget-me-nots, which should be the next to flower. The blue pot has tulips in it.

Just a few primroses to end on.