POW….the garden explodes. And as always happens in May, the whole garden seems to be filled with aquilegia (I’m not good at weeding them out). It therefore seems fitting to go for an aquilegia special for this week’s #SixOnSaturday. First up, is the basic purple. This must be close to th wild-type as about 70% of the plants have colour like this one.

Some of the flowers that come are doubles. This one, a double pink tone, has a wonderful form.

In stark contrast, perhaps the most surprising is a coupel of plants that offer an almost chocolate brown, with simple spikey flower shapes.

Pale pink appears often, I like the horns on the back of each petal on this one, each ending in a purple point.

A few plants offer the simplest pure white flowers.

This year, there seem to be a wider range of darker pinks too, perhaps I did manage to weed out some of those purples last year.

Just a small sample of the huge numbers of these glorious flowers that bring such a joy to mid spring. I hope you enjoyed my colourful spring garden for #SixOnSaturday this week. And 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, its 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

Thank goodness I have a lovely garden to enjoy the peak of springtime. I’m 3 months on from hip surgery and my consultant this week ‘is very happy with progress’. Wish I was, still nowhere near walking straight nor onto my bike. But I am able to hobble round the garden: the slow pace does make for some long detailed looking. This week, I’ve been looking at bright colours and crisp forms for #SixOnSaturday, barely a theme, but I love all these flowers.

A wildflower that I have let spread, looks cool and crisp, and is edible too. Wild garlic flowers are great in a salad.

Another wildflower dots itself around the garden in drifts of yellow and orange. The Welsh poppy. This ones comes with a passenger, my first sighting of an orange-tip butterfly this year. I am impressed by how similar the colour of flower and butterfly are.

A soon-to-be edible is my third choice. Apple blossom is late this year, though as full of promie as ever. No late frosts to get to the harvest, so far!

Its not my fault that my garden hosts Spanish, rather than the native, British bluebells. They are thugs, but hard not to love them.

The second of my huge rhododendrons is in bloom. A crisp white, with clusters of little gold flecks acting as a pollen guide for bees.

Last, I picked up a gorgeous candelabera primula a couple of years ago. It really loves the very boggy area next to the pond. Seems to be growing and spreading. A fabulous colour, set off wonderfully against the blue-grey furry stems and the greens of the soon-to-flower water iris.

I hope you enjoyed my colourful spring garden for #SixOnSaturday this week. And 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, its 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

With so much lush growth around the garden, I’d thought of a leafy green special for this week’s #SixOnSaturday. Yet the tulips called out to me. This year, I’ve experimented with both species-type, small delicate, lovely, though I’ve yet to get them into the borders proper as they are rather small. And I thought I’d try a few ‘mixed’ bags of bulbs this year. I’m glad I did, very cheerful for a spring when I’m fairly sedentary in the garden much more than usual. So here, we go. To start, some bright red species tulips that open wide and look almost like a field poppy.

Next, a slightly shocking burst of bright yellow. This is possibly a ‘double’, but surely is more of a treble? It appearsto be absolutely stuffed with petals.

from the same blub bundles, a red version that’s so bright that I have to photograph in the shade to have any chance of picking out the detail. Certainly eye-catching.

One big bag of bulbs contained a mix of striped tulips. I’m never been sure of these, yet in fact they are rather elegant, and seem to last for ages. Here’s a pink and white-tipped version.

And here a red-cream feathery effect is rather facinating. It was for the bees too. Before this flower was fully open I was dran to it by an constant gentle buzzing. A bumble bee had got stuck inside and could neither fly or walk out. A little tip of the flower helped her on her way.

Last, another gorgeous little pot of species tulip. This is ‘persian beauty’, and they really do glow in the sunshine.

I hope you enjoyed my tulip special for #SixOnSaturday this week. And 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, its 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