Taking a close look

Here is a little collection of close-up photos taken in my garden over the last few days.

The simple beauty of the daffodil is hard to beat...

The Golden Hop is growing rapidly, and you can already see the glorious contrast provided by the fresh yellow leaves against the deep Burgundy stems. These things grow at a rate of about an inch a day!

The apple tree's buds are opening quickly too.



This is Euphorbia - with a stray Dogwood twig that didn't want to be left out of the picture...

The Comfrey is poking its head up too. I only let this grow in the least attractive part of my garden, underneath the "Fish" tree, surrounded by compost bins. It survives in places where any other plant would fail.

This is Sprouting Broccoli "White Eye", beginning to form some shoots. It is a fair way behind its Purple cousins - which suits me fine since it extends the harvesting season. I just love the complex "swirly" nature of the leaves in this picture.

This is a little leaf of my new fern "Dryopteris Erythrosora".



And this my new Cornus Kesselringii.

Here is the last of my Cavolo Nero plants. You may recall that I deliberately left this one so that it would produce its flower buds, just like Sprouting Broccoli. You can see how the little shoots form in the leaf axils. The picture makes them look quite big, but in actual fact they are tiny, and all the shoots from the whole plant will probably only add up to one serving for two people.

This is Red-veined Sorrel. I grew it from seed last year (it was marketed as a Baby Leaf Salad ingredient), and I now have several clumps of it. It grows very slowly, but it's worth the wait.

Finally for today, here's the little Pulmonaria that "volunteered" itself last year. It's still tiny, because it is growing right under the big Bay tree, where it gets hardly any light, but I think it is very attractive. I may decide to move it to somewhere better...



Isn't it strange that this plant produces flowers of two different colours? Not flowers WITH two different colours, which is common enough...