April - the best in bloom this month

This is one of my favourite months of the year, when the majority of fruit trees blossom and the leaves appear on the trees and shrubs. My garden changes more during this month than any other, starting the month with most colour coming from bulbs and blossom, and ending a mass of blue with the Aquilegias, Forget Me Nots, Bluebells and Cat Mint at their best. It's a time to stop and stare a while and the only way to capture the moment is to photograph it, as a few days later it will be different yet again!

I bought mixed Narcissus bulbs years ago and have no idea
of names. I just enjoy the variety of colours and shapes,
flowering at different times.

Funnily enough whilst randomly googling I came across Narcissus 'Geranium' which I think is the above variety! 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Narcissus_Geranium.jpg

This kind of bog standard tulip comes back year after year, never losing quality.
The Pulmonaria in the background is still flowering, after about two months.

Geranium Phaeum, which is becoming a bit of a thug!
The plants just get bigger and bigger and self seed everywhere.

Ornamental Weeping Cherry by the pond was a delight.

Species Tulips look beautiful whether they are open or closed.

They open on sunny days, which thankfully we had plenty of this month!

This Rhododendron was smothered in flowers and is just starting to go over now, 
but I've a later flowering one to take its place!

More unknown Narcissus - they are growing in my Thyme bank and always
look downhill, so I can't get closer to them to photograph them.

Wallflowers (Erysimum). I used to poo-poo these spring bedding plants
but now I know how wonderful they are; delightfully fragrant
with really bright colours just when you need them, early in the year.

Front of the house looking bright with the Euphorbias still going strong.
Two out of three cats got into the picture, can you spot them?

A nice place to sit and have a cuppa, as can be seen by the two mugs
on the bench that I forgot were there! That's the Weeping Cherry,
although it's not weeping that much as we gave it a haircut last year.

The big old eating Cherry looked magnificent too.

Here it is behind the Lilac.

Lilac. What more can I say. Mmmm!

This pic goes back to earlier in the month, when my Cercis Canadensis 'Forest Pansy' was
smothered in buds. This is its 3rd spring here and so far the buds had never opened,
just dropping onto the ground after a week or two.

Hoorah, after several weeks some of the flowers actually opened up!
It wasn't the blast of colour that it should be, and after this most of the buds..... dropped off!
But this is a huge improvement.

Round the front of the house, the Golden Oregano now matches the colour
from the Euphorbias. That's a raspberry and blackberry bed
looking ugly in the background!

Early morning near the end of the month,
the Arum Lily (Zantedeschia) is starting to flower.

Blue Aquilegias and Alpine Forget Me Not, which is small and compact and fills the gaps nicely.

Couldn't forget Apple blossom!

When the Tulips start to lose their petals,
it's a lot easier to see their insides. :-)

This last week has been mostly wet and cloudy, so I haven't taken many new photos, but did get a photo of my first Clematis to flower when the sun came out later in the afternoon yesterday.

Clematis 'Miss Bateman'.

I think I may resurrect my Flowers by Month theme where I managed to feature flowers every month for the entire year in 2012. I take so many photos I need somewhere to share them!