Clocks spring forward this weekend and I know spring is coming, but somehow I’m feeling tired of being chilly, I wish things would cheer up a bit. A quick tour round the garden always helps the mood, so here goes for this week’s #SixOnSaturday.

I may be taking spring slowly, but it’s all happened this week in the pond. Four, or maybe five, frogs feature here. I counted at least 20 males, they sang almost non-stop for 10 days. Only one female was spotted, yet there are buckets full of frogspawn now, so I guess those girls knew what they were doing.

I do love the secret flowers that pop up in springtime. Erythronium occasionally appear, one has popped up this year. The flowers are delicate and the foliage distinctive.

It will be a good while until fruit season, but blossom is on its way. I have a 200 year old pear tree that is about to burst forth. It is full of buds this year.

For the first time, it looks as though I’ve managed to overwinter a cordyalis. Here it is, tiny, but very pretty for a few weeks.

My favourite hellebore has taken many weeks to arrive, but is here now. This is a reminder to me to pop out and keep soaking in the view. The centre of these flowers is what I love the most.

Last, and certainly not least, peak scilla seems to have hit. On a sunny morning, this is what they do. How could anyone not smile when they see this.

It really is very cheering to get into the garden and have a mooch around. Hope you have time to do so too this weekend. Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on Mastodon. We are starting to get the sixes going on Mastodon (other instances in the Fediverse are available), but we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. 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/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m now mostly on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot.

This week has offered a mix of freezing temperatures and calm mild days. For my #SixOnSaturday this week, I offer the spring-like activity that has survived the eastern Scottish late winter.

First up, I do love a drumstick primula. They tend to disappear if planted into the garden, with the potted ones coming back again and again. This year, I suspect the summer drought and winter variation has stunted them….the flowerhead is sitting on a rather stumpy drumstick. Last week I showed you these in frost and snow. The flowers are coming now, well worth a close-up look.

Spring is almost here, heralded in recent years by a few pots of mini-daffs. I don’t know if they come first because of the variety, or because the pots warm up in the sun. They are very welcome. The close up makes it hard to judge the size: each flower is about 1.5cm long.

This is likely to be the final view of this year’s hazel catkins. They have been magnificent. Look carefully here and you’ll spot a big fat bud coming behind the tiny red female flower. I assume that means there’s been some successful pollination and we’ll have hazelnuts this year…ALL of which will be snaffled by the red squirrels.

Iris have featured often in my blog this year. And again, here’s possibly one last look at a pot with really dense planting of bulbs. I do love the effect, so cheerful near the front door.

I’m never hugely satisfied with wallflower. They flower early, they last a while, but from the second year onwards, they get very leggy. Here are some flowers on a purply-red-orange variety. they look great, but the rest of the plant is a bit scrappy. Is there a better way to keep these going for a few years?

Finally, somebody HELP me……..I am sinking even more under the spell of the ‘courtyard robin’, who now offers a really hard stare if I forget to pop out and feed him….scary!

I hope you enjoyed my #SixonSaturday. Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on Mastodon. We are starting to get the sixes going on Mastodon (other instances in the Fediverse are available), but we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. 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/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m now mostly on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot.

That ‘polar vortex’ came down and got us. -6 deg C these last couple of a nights, and a sprinkling of snow. This week’s #SixOnSaturday is a shivery boundary between late winter and early spring.

First, I caught a pot of crocus and primula with the snow still on them. Astonishing how similarly purple these two very different flowers are.

Things are starting to stir in the (unheated) greenhouse. A new experiment this year was to sow some very early coriander a couple of weeks ago. It has germinated in there, and now is almost ready to scatter over a salad, I’ve sown another pot full today.

I’ve got around to clearing most of the winter wreckage from my main flower borders, to reveal a host of cheerful scilla. I love their blue-white flowers popping up to replace the snowdrops.

Clematis were hit hard by last year’s heat and dry spells. Having died back in August, I feared the worse for some. There’s hope yet though, here they come. The tiny specks of dew are what’s left when the snow thaws.

Having spotted my first little clump of native primrose on a recent walk, I hurried home to check the status of my garden varieties. This one is full of bud with a few burgundy flowers doing their thing. The tiny hairs all over the stem make an interesting close-up.

Last, but very much not least, spring has started for me as I have plucked my first posy of daffs from out of the garden. What a burst of golden joy.

I hope you enjoyed my #SixonSaturday. Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on Mastodon. We are starting to get the sixes going on Mastodon (other instances in the Fediverse are available), but we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. 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/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m now mostly on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot.

I was away last week visiting family, so sent just a very quick #SixOnSaturday post to Mastodon, which you find here. This week, I’m home in time for ‘spring’ — a cold snap is coming, but not quite yet, so there’s a chance to do some veg bed prep this weekend, before possible snow and ice. In the mean time, here are some promising signs of spring for my first #SixOnSaturday of the new month.

I’ve been waiting, and finally those tiny little red female flowers on the hazel here here, nestled at the top of each catkin.

I’m pleased to see the very first mini-daffs are flowering, amidst pulmonaria in full flower now.

Magnolia are having a slow start this year, but soon, soon their will break their buds. Meanwhile, the fluffy texture of the buds is very pleasing.

Another new iris for this year. These were much later to flower than the typical blue, or the plae yellow, but well worth the wait. I love the rich purple.

Perhaps just a bit too early, I do hope that the first few muscari don’t get blasted by snow and ice!

For this week’s finale, it is worth waiting a few years for hellebore to establish. I’ve been posting flowers from this one since they started to appear: now the plant is showing its full floriferous glory.

I hope you enjoyed my #SixonSaturday. Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on Mastodon. We are starting to get the sixes going on Mastodon (other instances in the Fediverse are available), but we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. 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/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m now mostly on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot.