Spring Creeping Forward

We were visiting Ann and Alan for the weekend, which meant nothing happened in our garden (though we did do a few bits in theirs on Sunday morning, which was rather pleasant (I'm envious of their lovely soil)). However, I managed this evening to walk round the garden, and see how things are coming on.

Spring has not made itself abundantly obvious (still pretty cold), but things are definitely livening up. There are lots of daffodils out (and many going over):

The Copse Bed (© Ian 2013)

Daffodils, including 'Minnow' (orange corona) and 'White Lion' (white perianth, creamy double corona) (© Ian 2013)

Copse bed, looking up past the new flower bed (with sweet pea wigwams) to the Colour Wheel (© Ian 2013)

I made my way down to the kitchen garden, and was delighted to find a bee busily working on the currant and gooseberry flowers. I think it was a common carder bee, but I'm not sure.

Bee pollinating gooseberry flowers (© Ian 2013)

A little further on, the rhubarb is doing magnificently. One or two of the crowns are either small, or missing, but that's not too bad: there are at least two of each variety doing fine, so I can split these later to fill the gaps.

Rhubarb growing strongly (© Ian 2013)

I remember when it looked like this:

The Rhubarb Bed under construction (© Ian 2011–13)

The first/second early potatoes are doing well, and need earthing up a bit: and the maincrop are now showing above the soil (and so also need earth filling into their trenches). The PSB and cauliflowers are going over, so we need to get them eaten. Almost all of the onions are now poking through the weed-proof membrane, which is very encouraging.

On my way back to the house, through the middle lawn, I spotted two last things. The Japanese Quince is nearly flowering, and the cherry 'Summer Sun' is flowering, which it didn't manage last year. Perhaps this year will see our first cherries, the 'Stella' never having borne any.

Flowers on cherry 'Summer Sun' (© Ian 2013)