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!

November flowers

The last month in my 12 month series of what is flowering in the garden! No major frosts before going away mid November so despite being damp there was still a fair bit of colour here and there. The photos were taken during the first week of the month.

Lavatera - only this solitary stem had buds on and just
one flower at a time opened, but they are big enough to notice!

Marigolds in the wildflower meadow in my veg patch
were just hanging in there

Nasturtiums were still flowering despite minor frost damage to leaves

Calendulas are quite tough and kept on looking good;
the background plants were the Sunflowers which were very tatty!

Despite their overall tattiness, the Sunflowers kept on putting out tiny new flowers!

Dill flowers - slightly gone to seed but still adding a lot of colour

Bidens, being a late season flowering plant,
was still looking good

There was still colour and interest in my blue Hydrangea

And the pink Hydrangea looked gorgeous as the petals faded
and skeletonised

White ivy leafed Pelargoniums looked tatty, more from the rain than from light frost.
Here's the last butterfly I saw in the garden, a Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria).

Borage can withstand light frosts and every time the sun shone,
a few honey bees appeared to feed on the flowers.

A solitary stem of Lavender against a backdrop of Stipa tenuissima
(Angel's Hair grass)

Roses kept on budding although the rain meant the flowers
were a soggy mess!

Last but most definitely not least - I can't finish without my main
butterfly attractor, Verbena bonariensis.
Here it is practically hidden away behind a Peacock butterfly,
with just one little flower peeking out!

Now it is December, and I came home from my hols to a frosted, wintery looking garden. The Hydrangea flowers are a soggy mess, the Nasturtiums have been composted and nearly everything has had it, although the calendula still hangs on in a rather sad droopy way. There are still a few sprightly flowers if I look hard - wild heartease Violas which can manage to flower all through winter, Campanula poscharskyana which has had a few flowers for months, as it often repeat flowers in a far less spectacular way in the cool of autumn, a half frosted/half flowering Bidens, early Primroses and a few pink Lamiums in sheltered spots. But really the ornamental garden has gone to bed for the winter now so will be all the more rewarding when it comes back to life again in the spring!

October flowers

There are still a fair few plants in bloom but most of the colour this month comes from the annuals which are still flowering, which are predominantly yellow and orange and really serve to brighten the place up, now that the weather is rather miserable!

Bidens with a hoverfly (Helophilus trivittatus) enjoying it

Gaillardia - this plant was still flowering in December last year

Yellow Pot Marigold (Calendula) still attracting hoverflies

An orange Calendula with a Marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus) hovering above it.

A few perennials have valiantly tried to make a come back such as this beautiful rose, but with the almost continual rain sadly the flowers didn't last long as roses and rain just don't go together!

Rosa 'Zephirine Drouhin'

Cranesbill Geranium 'Jolly Bee'

A final flower for my Lavatera

Which actually managed to open despite all the rain!

The Dahlias don't look too bad if you just look at the individual blooms and ignore the ones that have become a soggy mess; deadheading becomes a little bit less important at this time of year when you know the frosts can come any day now and the plants will blacken and need lifting.

Marmalade hoverfly again!

I don't know all the names of these Dahlias;
they are my OH's domain and he does have notes as to which
one went where.

With Dahlias, I love the brightest, most garish colours, none of the pastel colours for me!

Around the front of the house this Thunbergia alata
(Black Eyed Susan) self seeded and swamped the Jasmine that
I had planted here. I actually weeded out tons of the seedlings!

But somehow they seem to like it and have twined up and through
both the rose and the Verbena bonariensis here!

In this same bed under where the Black Eyed Susan is,
Borage has also self seeded. It's good for the late bees.

My Rosemary has also just started to flower again!
This normally flowers in profusion in late winter/early spring
so is great for the bees when there are few other flowers around.

And of course my Verbena bonariensis just keeps on flowering and flowering!
Here it is with a Heineken hoverfly (Rhingia campestris) on it.
These hoverflies are all over the place at the moment even on really dull days.

I can't not have a butterfly photo! Even on the most dire cloudy days this month
I've still seen a few butterflies here and there.
Peacocks (Inachis io) absolutely adore the Verbena bonariensis.

Our weather forecasts keep changing all the time; last week they said we'd be having between 0 and -2C this weekend; that's changed to slightly warmer (around 2-3C) but with horrible easterly winds, so I guess the flowers will carry on for a bit longer. If they can just survive through to November then I will have completed my one year challenge with something flowering in my garden every month over the last year!

Now, just to let you know. I'll be doing one final posting this month, a Halloween Special (mwahahahahaha!!!!!) but for those who may not wish to read it - and I will warn you about the content, promise - I have to let you know now that I shall be taking November off from blogging as I am going to England for the latter half of the month to catch up with family, shop till I drop, eat as much deep pan pizza as is humanely possible and get really cross with the horrendous traffic. :-) So will be back again blogging in early December and breathing a sigh of relief to be back to the peace and quiet and empty roads of rural France, as two weeks of enoying the consumerist society in England is enough to last me a good year!