Head down marching onwards

In a brief moment of sunshine we snapped the progress of this sweet little iris. Someone wrote in a blog how precious the few things that were out at this time of year seemed. They were so right. Flowers that would be totally overlooked in the show of summer assume huge significance.

One of the things that always strikes me about gardens ( and probably why I like gardening so much ) is the way, whatever the weather throws at it, it adapts and gets on with it. Under the sodden soil I noticed a delphinium poking up. And I know from last year, even if we have some late frosts that burn it, it will just regroup and try again. Some moral there?

And as February crawls along the scattering of snowdrops has become almost a drift!

In a world of its own the garden is inexorably moving towards Spring. It can't be soon enough!

Signs of Spring

My peering at the ground has continued this week with some good signs of Spring as the result. I know I must be cautious as last year all the spring like signs were doused with snow for several weeks at the end of February and beginning of March. So what did I find? First of all snowdrops.

Not many yet - but a definite scattering. And then lungwort. I love this picture - the shoots are so neat and full of promise. This is a particular favourite from my mum's garden which is a pretty pale blue.

And a lovely little iris. I can take no credit for this as it came straight from the garden centre - but it's very pretty.

Although I am delighted at these signs of spring I recognise that they probably just look like more and more pictures of brown, waterlogged soil. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it would feel like cheating to use other people's pics.

And my other garden good news is that we have bought our shed. This is a 10 x 6 creation from Albany sheds in the Suffolk style. Basically it is a pent roof shed with a door on one side and a window next to it. It's going in our vegetable garden where our old greenhouse was and will be used to store all the things cluttering up everywhere else like flowerpots and sacks of compost. We will also be able to keep a few tools in there which will free up some space in our wonderful toilet cum outhouse! We are especially pleased with the shed as it is a clearance bargain so we have saved ourselves a goodly sum of money. Only thing is we have to have the base down by the end of Feb -so watch this space for digging and laying of paving slabs. Hmm - not much fun but I hope the end result will be worth it.