We went back to winter this week in Fife. -3 degC nights, 5 degC days and snow flurries for the last few days. I spent some time moving tomatoes back into the house from the greenhouse, and vulnerable new veg plants from the sunny corner, back into the greenhouse. Despite the weather, still the colours come. For my Six on Saturday this week, I’ll start and end with colour, and sandwich new growth and promise in between. This was the week (a wee bit later than usual) that the camelia got going. I have her in a shady corner, so far there are just a few flowers near the top of the 2x2m shrub. Each one is exquisite.

Second this week, one of the plants with the most obvious frost damage is gunnera. I took the blanket of old leaves off a couple of weeks ago. There’s certainly some evidence of frost burn as the leaves unfurl, but this is a HUGE plant most years: 3m across, up to 2m high, so being a bit rough with it should not be a problem in a couple of months. Rather beautiful, despite the brownish colour.

Sunny skies have featured highly this week. Despite the cold, magnolia flowers are beginning to pop out of their chubby buds and dance in the cold breeze.

I have a variety of current bushes against a sunny south-facing wall. The white currents are way ahead of the others this year, fully in flower, and being polinated by a variety of bees. There’s a tree bumble bee hiding to the right of the flowers here, it was rather resistant to being photographed, I just managed to get this one in focus.

Clematis montana features highly in my garden, adorning a range of walls, fences, and the sides of the house. This one is near the greenhouse, on a south-facing wall; the buds are plumping up nicely.

I started with colour, and I’ll end with it too. The very first tulips, here they come. I love red tulips above all other colours. I hope they cope with the frost, as there’s 4-5 more days of wintery weather to come.

That’s my Six for the week. I guess the good side of an April cold snap is that the early spring flowers last for longer. If you like Six on Saturday, do join in, there are lots of contributors on Twitter, and more via the regular blog from #SixonSaturday initiator, the great Propagator himself.