
I love fritillaries and they love the damp. The area where these are growing was completely flooded earlier in the year. We had a warm day yesterday, a damp one today (and the heating has come on) and frost is forecast for tomorrow. What is the poor gardener to do? I’m weeks behind. There are still pretty things to be seen and I took these pics first thing when I went out to bring in the bins. I can’t show you the masses of primroses everywhere because I can’t get a good landscape photo. Nor the grape hyacinths and some particularly nice pulmonarias I have because my photos just don’t capture the strong blues. But here’s a few pretty flowers.

Stitchwort growing wild.

These tulips are supposed to be ‘Ballerina’. I’m not convinced, but they are cheerful.

I’m thrilled to see that my Euophorbia mellifera will flower this year. I had a huge plant of it in my old garden, which I loved, so when I saw a single pot lurking at the garden centre a couple of years ago, I snapped it up. The foliage has suffered a little but when those flowers open, the garden will be filled with the scent of honey.

Another success, this Euphorbia ‘Black Pearl’. I paid rather a lot for it, planted it out the front (a very difficult bed, as I now know), where it promptly died. Luckily, I’d taken a cutting and here it is, thriving in a new home.

Epimediums are such good plants for shade.
These are self-seeded wallflowers. The ones planted last autumn have yet to flower.

