Easter

Easter came late this year. As late as it can be. That combined with glorious, sunny weather makes the old gardening saying sound a little absurd. My grandfather always said, 'Get your plants in by Good Friday.' If you'd relied on that you'd be too late this year. Daily, the view in the garden changes. Only last week the garden was full of tulips. Yesterday this is what we had.

We were lucky we had them at all. The winter had been so cold. It wasn't the fact that it snowed. It was the ice that hung around for weeks afterwards that killed so much in the garden. It's been a case of clearing out the dead wood but there have been successful plants too.

Sitting in the garden on Easter Sunday the scent from the plants was amazing. We went on a perfume hunt - well, we'd found all the eggs. Our noses led us here,

The horse chestnut blossom is spectacular. It's so pretty with its pink and white but the scent, combined with the bluebells, should be bottled.

There are clumps of bluebells all over the garden.

The clematis montana has now reached the top of the hawthorn and is stretching out for the chestnut on the other side.  Perhaps next year we''ll have a tunnel.

There are literally thousands of pale pink flowers. The birds use it for nesting because it's so dense.

The mountain ash, or rowan, is also in full blossom.

Sometimes you get plants that grow just where they want. For years I've been trying to grow lungwort in the border. Its sweet pink and blue flowers are sometimes the first to open. No sign of it this year. I'd put it down as another casualty of the winter but as I was clearing up at the side of the greenhouse I found this.

Struggling in the debris of winter, I'm almost afraid to move it. It makes my heart glad that it made it through and has chosen its own spot, even if it is bare and untidy.

Pasg hapus i chi. Happy Easter.