A Vase on Monday – Spoilt for Choice

I’m linking to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her Monday meme of a vase of flowers from the garden. This is a real spur for me to actually pick some of the flowers that at this moment are filling the garden with colour.

The Spring Walk – now there are some tulips

Now that the tulips are starting to flower the Spring Walk is beginning to look the way I imagined when I was planting the bulbs in late October.

The Slope on Thursday 27th March

The weather has been wintery since last Thursday; it seems unusual to have such a long period of cold temperatures in March but I don’t think that is true, it can snow in this part of Italy in March!
So it is lucky I didn’t have time to plant some of the tomatoes out as I had intended, fortunately the sunflowers are tougher than I suspected and are still alive, but they haven’t grown at all this week. On Monday night the temperature in the greenhouse fell to 2.8° C and there was frost on the solar panel, which it has to be said seems to have frost on it when nothing else does, there must be some logical reason for this but nothing springs to mind.

It should be Wordless Wednesday

But then again there is too much to say; too many impressions to not, so no this isn’t Wordless Wednesday, it’s tulip Wednesday!

Greenhouse and Cuttings Bed – March

I am late to link with Helen’s greenhouse meme (The patient Gardener) which was last week; but I wanted to keep a better record this year of how the greenhouse is used and blogging about it seems to be a good method to achieve this.  This time I’m including a little about the new bed for cut flowers, hopefully as more is happening there I’ll write separate posts.

A Vase on Monday A mix of colours

Today’s vase is quite a mixture of colours but I think they harmonise well together and the flowers certainly shout “It’s Spring”.  Thank you Cathy for encouraging me to pick flowers to bring inside; it is something I’ve always found difficult to do as I generally hate to rob the borders; but I do love having cut flowers, especially perfumed so this meme makes me look hard for what can be spared.  When there are flowers in the cuttings bed I will have no excuse at all, but it will be a while before there are flowers ready to pick.  If you would like to see what others have found to pick today do visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden; better still why not pick some flowers yourself and join in!

The Crimson Zone – Tulips

More and more Anemone Sylphide are flowering although a rogue red one is flowering here too.  Is it a seedling from last year’s corms or one that just crept into the wrong pack I wonder?  It would be lovely to think they are spreading by seed but maybe a bit optimistic for one to be flowering in its first year.

GBFD – Spring Sings, March 2014

There is a definite feeling of spring in the air; it isn’t that the temperatures are higher than before; it is the light levels that sign out that winter is over and spring is here!

There are new blooms opening almost every day now, but it isn’t the principle reason that the garden is telling me it is spring; new shoots, new foliage and changes in colour of foliage plus that hard to describe ‘fullness’ even of evergreen plants announce that though there is still time for some cold weather (last year we had a very cold spring even into May) there is now no stopping the relentless urge for plants to grow, flower and reproduce themselves.

The Spring Walk 21st March 2014

For the next few weeks I’ll post some images of the Spring Walk on Fridays so I can see how it performs in its first year.

The Slope on Thursday 20th March

The weather has been more settled his week, I was away for a long weekend but I’ve been told that the temperatures rose quite dramatically at the weekend to the mid 20’s with no cold wind ti make it feel colder.  I was away 4 days; I was shocked to see how much had changed when I returned.  Many tulips are now flowering and salad crops in trays in the greenhouse doubled in size!