Into May we go, and a long May Day weekend here looks wonderfully sunny. Though there have been some very sharp temperature changes this week. On Wednesday it hit 23 degC, but today we’ll reach only 13 and Monday it could even be 11 degC as a daytime high. Brgghhh, that northerly has just started coming in. I’m a little sad about that as, despite the sunshine, the breeze is blowing blossom away quickly. There’s so much going on the in garden, top plants of the season so far feature for this week’s #SixOnSaturday.
The most amazing display now we’re into mid-spring are from our apple trees. They are so loaded with blossom this year that you can barely see the leaves. Here’s one of the larger, older trees.
A more subtle tree also displaying right now is a quince. I love the delicate pink blooms. I often get plenty of flowers, but seldom get more than 2-3 fruits. the tree seems to grow well, but I wonder if the conditions are just too cool and dry to fully develop the fruit.
Almost all the narcissi have finished now, leaving me with the rather tedious job of dead heading a huge number of blooms. A favourite, always flowering very late, is the pheasant-eye. Here she is, only a few pop up each year yet they are worth waiting for.
A range of large rhododendrons are lowly rotating into bloom. This lovely pink-white variety is at it peak now. No discernible scent, but the bees love it and the flowers glow in the evening light.
Clematis Montana are in bloom. They grow up several parts of the garden wall, and the walls of the house. Most are now bobbing away in the breeze, like this white variant on the south-facing house wall.
Last this week, not all the wonder in the garden comes from flowers. I admire the shape of a freshly leafing hosta. This one next to the pond seems already to be suffering a little snail damage. Hopefully not too much more as blackbirds are now busy hunting for food.
That’s my #SixOnSaturday this week. I hope you have some wonderful sunshine to enjoy gardens and green spaces too. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog – sorry if I don’t always get back to you on time! The blog is going well, but it would be great if more folk on Mastodon, or other parts of the Fediverse got into tooting a Six! Go on, it’s a much kinder form of social media, not controlled by crazy billionaires. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot