Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - April 2008

We have had lovely lovely weather for a couple of days now, hope it stays a while. Nice big fat clouds with lots of blue sky showing through. And warmish as well! Up till a few days ago, the weather has been so cold! Last year, my garden was way ahead of this year, I had many more flowers in bloom.
In my garden, there are many daffodils blooming.

The wallflowers are starting to fill in.

Euphorbia is still looking great in its unique alienish way.

Forget-me-nots are everywhere!

Daisies in the lawn, I mow around most of them.

A few hyacinths, wish I had more.

Primulas looking nice finally.. wonder what happened to all the slugs?

My tulips "Mickey Mouse" just beginning to open.

Mickeys in front of self seeded honesty.
I love the common names of some flowers.. forget-me-not, honesty, love-in-a-mist. So romantic.

Visit Carol's blog for April Bloom Day, see what's in flower all over the world!
To see some wildflowers in bloom, have a look at my post yesterday.
Have a lovely spring, all you gardeners! And do try to take Carol's advice in the garden: "be"

yellow flowers of the countryside

It's a beautiful day! So I went for a cycle to see if I could find some gorse to take photos of, as it's blooming everywhere now.

There were a lot of wild primulas on the sides of the road, all in a lovely pale yellow.

Also in a brighter yellow grew marsh marigolds.

Daffodils were everywhere as well, again in yellow. Seems like all the flowers I saw today were colored yellow.

Yellow daffs play peek-a-boo through a fence.

Moo! Baaaa! No flowers in this photo, but that bull was eyeing me as I went past.

This house at the side of the road had masses of daffodils!

More daffodils.. and I see some gorse in the distance.

Found a gorse behind a wall.

And finally, I found some at the side of the road!

It's so cheerfully yellow, I couldn't help but smile! It's just the richest color of yellow in the countryside during this time of year.

St. Stephen's Green

On Friday, I went into Dublin to have lunch with my daughter and son, to buy some seeds, and to see the magnolias in bloom. St. Stephen's Green is my favorite Dublin park, always filled with flowers and scents.

Coming through the arch, I see a field of daffodils waving in the breeze.

I sit and have an apple, watching the birds on the pond. I see mostly seagulls.. where are all the ducks? Later on, my son walked by here too, passed a couple of tourists who commented to each other that we had funny looking ducks here.

In the middle of the park, tulips bloom everywhere.

The scent of the hyacinths was heavenly!

The magnolia was in full bloom. Magnificent!

Along the perennial border, I noticed these pretty yellow flowers. I'm not familiar with them. Maybe dogtooth violet?

A few early cherries were already in bloom.

Even the horses were decorated with flowers.

As was my reflection in a flower shop!

Festival of The Trees #22 is up

For anyone who has a love of trees, this month's Festival of The Trees is up at Árvores Vivas em Nossas Vidas. It's the first bi-lingual edition of the festival. My post for this month is "Saillé's Dream", posted for World Storytelling Day.

Ghost, angel or faerie?

This is a picture from a few years ago, during a snow flurry. In the bottom of the garden, there seems to be a small flying creature. Maybe a faerie? An angel? or a ghost?
Princess Haiku had a post a while back about a ghostly image, and invited her readers to share any ghostly pictures.
I have another ghostly pic on my art blog as well.

disaster

In this box, I'm growing heritage seedlings of peas and beans, (thanks Rebsie!) and several varieties of sunflowers and cabbages. They were all coming along quite nicely. I put the box outside every day to give them sunshine and outdoor life. In the evening, I put them back inside.

So today I did the same, and the weather played a nasty April Fool on me and the seedlings. The wind became so fierce, it blew the whole box upsidedown, dumped all the dirt and seedlings on the grass, and blew the little pots all over my garden and the street. The wind also blew over my recycle bin, and paper, bottles and cans were rolling and blowing everywhere. So, I ignored all the recycle stuff for the moment, and tried saving all the seedling strait away, scooping them up and rushing them inside to lay on my dining table.

I hope I got everything, here's what was left in the grass, hopefully that's only the potting soil. So then I rushed all over the neighborhood, collecting all the recycle junk, hope I got it all. Back inside, I spent my lunch hour re-potting all the seedlings. Unfortunately, all the labels were dumped as well, and now I have no idea what's what anymore. I think I can tell the red cabbage from the green. All the sunflowers are different sizes, so no idea which are tall and which are short.

And worst is that I don't know which is what from all the beans and peas. Most of them stayed in their group, so I'm sure each pot is now holding the same variety. Maybe when they grow bigger, I will see the difference.
And I ended up with several extra pots.. hmm..
Well, thankfully, all seedlings look ok still. Nothing looks wilted yet, so it's not a total disaster. I'll still eat peas, beans and cabbages this summer.