Weird & wonderful

 Why stick to only the traditional things in your garden? Last June was excellent for amelanchia berries - sweet, juicy purple-red berries which look slightly like blackcurrants. The tree itself is  fantastic in spring, with showers of starry white flowers, and gorgeous in the autumn with it's burning orange leaves. What more could anyone possibly want?

Also, yellow raspberries -perfect complement to the red ones

And Aronia melancarpa - sinister but great in jam and jellies

Mai, la belle!

Better late than never - time to catch up on some posts and sort through the few images taken since last year.
In the garden, May is the first really wonderfull month, when the explosion of lush growth astounds me every year. Mmmmmmmm

Papaver orientale Princess Victoria Louise

Ambroise

Finn out in the sun

Tansy Golden fleece

Irises

spectacular

Bold Stroke

Iris florentina

Iris pumilla, orange form

The Limousin is a good area for irises. Surprisingly, given the winter cold and wet, they catch up and burst forth in all their glory. The first you see everywhere are a rich purple colour, clearly an old variety, followed slightly later by the fragrant iris pallida and the siberians. Glorious!!!

ponds

Amazing the change in the ponds, in a short time. Filled with frogs, newts, dragonfly larvae, and the ubiquitous snails.

the irises

iris sibirica

april

le parfum des lilas-exquise

Iris Djiin

Geum Bell Bank still in flower

Charlie hunting lizards

pond life

You pay for your pleasure! But hot sunny days and being three weeks ahead of where we should be seems, at this minute in time fine. Water shortages loom, however.

mid march

pyrus Chanticleer

Things racing on apace - the spring flowering bulbs are just a misty memory, and the blossom has been, and gone-all to quickly, but WHAT a treat!!

fin mars / late march

Geum Bell Bank

les fleurs de pêche de vigne

les bassins recommencent d'avoir de la verdure

Beware the ides of march- I think the saying goes, but this year march has been agreeable weatherwise, if worryingly dry. The garden has a good couple of weeks advance over where it should be, but everything , fotr the moment, is looking lovely. First insects bumbling round, not that many, but it is still early on.