The bluebells are out, the woods are full of them

My lilac is in leaf but no sign of any buds ... and my laburnum is only just beginning to produce leaves, but for some reason, my laburnum is always later than other laburnums in the area.

What stage is the natural world at elsewhere in the UK and overseas?

Yes, the woods here are full of bluebells

Loads of bluebells, almost in full bloom, cherry blossom out, just, but it won't last long as it is raining and windy. My geese have been very slow indeed laying and sitting this year. A good goose will lay and be sitting by Valentine's day but mine has just started to sit today. And no broody hens yet.

Just ghosts in the upstairs study........!

It is a bit topsy - turvy. Some things are early but some are later. I have bluebells, honesty, euphorbia, spirea, rosemary in bloom in the garden. Daffodils were on the early side. Hardy geraniums just budding and will be open in a few days.

At the back, the young creamy-pink buds of the maple which we put in 2 or 3 years ago normally clash horribly with next-door's bright yellow forsythia ( every year so far for a couple of weeks in spring I've regretted planting the maple where we did ! ) - however this year they are out of sync for the first time: the forsythia is nearly over and the maple leaves only just opening.

I love spirea Do you trim yours maggie? Many years ago I had a spirea and it was wonderful in the spring - it grew to be really huge and was left in its natural state. It was when I lived in a flat and one day I came home and discovered the new communal gardeners had decimated it and made it into a smooth round ball

oh dear! no, I do very little to them (as to most things!) - tend to like them left fairly natural. I trim off the dead flower-heads usually. Mine aren't gi-normous yet - one is over by the hedge and isn't in the way, and the others are quite a bit smaller, grouped with euphorbia and other low shrubs. The rosemary hasn't stopped flowering since last year.

Well, I haven't actually seen any bluebells yet...

well the daffys are still out in full bloom in northern scotlan...
alison

Cherry blossom...blue skies on green fields (hopefully)...green leaves on trees

Saw Wisteria out in full bloom today near Malvern.
Cherry blossom is out early too.
Bev.

Hardy geraniums just budding and will be open in a few days.


Our hardy geraniums started flowering yesterday. Can't remember the cultivar. Apple trees in blossom, cherry tree a mass of pink, but the bluebells haven't flowered yet. Perhaps because they are in deep shade. At least 2 blackbird nests being built in the garden this weekend.

We've got Cherry Blossom on our trees too, infact most things in the garden are blooming. I enjoy the garden but I'm no expert about when things are supposed to flower!

Our hardy geraniums started flowering yesterday. Can't remember the cultivar.

I love them all. Which reminds me, there are many more in the back garden I've not seen for a while, I suspect they may have got a bit overgrown and I must go and have a look tomorrow and see if I can give them some air. I had about a dozen a year or two back including geranium renardii with soft velvety leaves. Also have a very striking and much larger purple one which blooms later in the summer ( sorry - will stop waffling).

We have apple and pear blossom at the moment too - apple is usually earlier than pear if I remember correctly - but I think we delayed the apple by having the trees trimmed in the spring.

Yes, apple before pear. Our small ornamental pear hasn't started blossoming yet. The Bramley has relatively few blossoms this year, which I suppose means we won't spend all of the autumn trying to think of apple recipies and trying to give them to anyone who comes here.

While we are talking of gardening, am I the only one desperate for this sunny dry spell to end? Our soil is basically gravel - our area has several gravel pits, our front garden could easily be one of them. We've already emptied all five of our water butts, and had to resort to the hosepipe. The Met Office says we'll get heavy rain on Tuesday night - fingers crossed!

Yep, my cherry blossom is fully out .

My first daffodil was out on 20th January (!) and I still have some narcissi out now!

Him Indoors and I went for a drive down to Beachy Head this afternoon and saw loads of wisteria in full bloom! On 22nd April!!! AND rhododendrons out in one place too. Crazy, man...

We would have been getting cherry blossom on our tree sometime soon, had we not cut it down....... yes I know, it seems a crying shame but it had really spread far too much for our garden and was increasing in size every year - it had already spread partway over our neighbours' gardens to each side.......it was a huge japanese cherry tree which would have been fine had our garden been twice the width....and unfortunately there was no real way we could prune it or reduce its size without killing it anyway, so with heavy hearts we felled it....... Still, we're planning to replace it with another much smaller cherry at some point........

Yesterday I watered my vegetable seedlings (bitter melon on the side where the middle school kids loiter; tomatoes round the other side of the house !), in a storm of petals from next-door's crab-abble tree. It was too early for the tropical "snake beans" I planted, but the runner bean shoots are tottering out of their seeds. Basil is growing nicely, but that darned green perilla is as temperamental as ever.

Our Japanese plum blossom is long gone, and now there are olive-sized plums, making me think that it will soon be time to make "plum wine", Japan's answer to slivovitz! And then it will be time to salt down umeboshi again.

The "unknown varieites, 3 for 100 yen" geraniums are growing buds, so I'm waiting impatiently to see what I bought. Violets and daffodils have finished, and the hellebores are past their best. Honesty is blooming and the summer lilies are starting to grow. Time to plant the sunflower seedlings which are growing huge on my kitchen table.

Our major spring holidays are just coming up, and garden centres here have all their grafted tomatoes and tropical bitter melon seedlings stocked up. The latest varieties of morning glory are being advertised for summer.

We've had a cold spell, so all the city plantings of azalea are still in bud, and the local eel restaurant's huge wisteria trellis is only just showing colour in the buds.

Swallows have already nested, and the local variety of starling (rather fat, pale brown, spotted, and with tufts on their heads) have stopped flirting and chirping in the plum blossom, along with the nightingales. Even the crows were ducking and bobbing and cawing at each other in the plum trees for a week or so!

that darned green perilla is as temperamental as ever.
is that shiso ? oooh I love that stuff !

I forgot to say earlier - I saw a dragonfly this afternoon.

I've got autumn berries on my pyracantha Does that mean summer's over

If summer ever was !

I've noticed some things in bloom that don't usually come out until a bit later - Caryopteris and Abelia for example. The honesty seed-heads are looking a bit autumnal too.

I saw some very ripe blackberries yesterday...

It's that time of year when the pears and apples are starting to fall from the trees in the garden...

Car Expert

a mate of mine who has a bramble in her garden gave us three boxes of blackberries the weekend before last!

The grass is beginning to turn yellow, the maize is shoulder high, the apples have been literally cooked on the trees. The lagastromia (can't spell it) is blooming beautifully, the wisteria has long finished flowering but is sending greenery everywhere. It has been wetter than usual so it is greener than usual and very pretty especially down by the river.

A few swallows and yesterday an enormous cream and brown butterfly crossed the garden. But the days are already shorter; it is dark by 9.30 instead of 10 as it was at the beginning of the holiday. Lots of bats at dusk.

I have to say, things are looking good around here now - they seem to be at their peak. The grass is green, the cherry blossom has countless more leaves than last year, the hanging baskets are overflowing with colour...I love this time of year .

Hmmm, 30 degrees at 6am here, even the crows are looking a bit battered by the heat, the only "cool" thing is the sound of the bell insects in the evening - they make a strange, eerie sound, though they have a hard time competing with the amazing racket the cicadas make.

Our "yard-long" snake beans are best eaten when they're only a foot long, but it's hard to catch them before they get that long! This is the month for tropical vegetables like Malabar spinach and bitter gourd...can't wait till the weather's *not* tropical though.

The temperate climate flowers like roses and geraniums seem to completely stop flowering once it gets really hot, and instead we have types of hibiscus, and the fragrant white bottle gourd flowers which open in the evening.

A few neighbours grow "exotic" plants like blackberry, but thanks to very cloudy weather recently, none are ripe, though the bushes are laden with huge green berries.

Bobifier seems to be turning green and spending a lot of time upside down...

And to think I'm helping him with his furniture tomorrow...

Ah, MT and ML's summer activity...

You can tell that it is summer, because we start turning up at the doors of our friends unexpectedly, which can lead to fits of rage or shock. We start going on adventures on bikes, such as the one down an overgrown and muddy track with two flat tires. We will start to walk to silly places, and spread ourselves just about everywhere we aren't wanted, leaving, of course, no space for places where we are wanted.

I shall keep updates on the seasonal differences until they become monotonous (unlikely - the Matthews are NEVER monotonous!) or until you threaten to find my address and throw things at me.

Well summarised!