Late April pics

Late April is a time of feverish activity in many gardens - humans are busy sowing seeds and planting seedlings, but the perennial plants, trees, shrubs etc are busy too.

The countryside is presently adorned with swathes of blossom of every conceivable sort. This is my apple tree "Winter Banana" joining in:

My few crowns of Asparagus are putting up some spears now. I think we have eaten four so far!

I hope there will be a lot more to come, because Asparagus is one of my favourite vegetables (I have lots of favourites, depending on the time of year).

Here comes the Comfrey, pushing up undaunted through the mound of soil I dumped on top of it a few months ago.

This particular plant has decided to flower more or less immediately. You can see buds forming on it already.

The first few buds are also forming on some of the Aquilegia plants, many of which have self-seeded all over the garden.

Late April / early May is also the time for the Lily of the Valley to come into flower.

I always find it hard to get good photos of Lily of the Valley. If you set the settings bright enough for the dark green leaves, the brilliant white of the flowers is often TOO bright. This is the best I have been able to produce.

I've mentioned before that I'm leaving my PSB to flower. Well, it is beginning to show some yellow now:

What about this diminutive specimen?

That's a 7cm pot it's in

It is the "runt of the litter" from my first batch of Broad Beans. It looked very weak right from the start and unusually produced two stems instead of one. I had enough plants for my requirements without using this one, but I kept it anyway. Despite its tiny size, this plant seems determined to make a name for itself and is already starting to flower. Just for interest, I think I will keep it alive and see if it goes on to produce any beans. If it does, I expect they will be very small!

This is the new foliage on Cotinus "Royal Purple", currently looking much more red than purple.

And here's some fresh new leaves of Golden Dogwood "Cornus Alba Aureum".

Finally for today, a photo of the emerging Oxalis "Burgundy Wine":

Oxalis is often considered a pernicious weed, but if kept under control (like mine, in a pot), this cultivar can be very attractive. When mature it produces delicate white flowers, but the deep crimson foliage is definitely its primary characteristic.