Ahhh sunshine at last – it makes such a difference.  The birds are singing and there is lots of colour and fragrance in the garden now.  In the stumpery the sarcococca and the winter flowering Lonicera fragrantisima  are smelling lovely, as is the viburnum in the raised bed and the skimmia japonica on the patio.  In the front garden it is the mahonia giving the very strong scent.

The leaves on the possibly dead witch hazel have finally tuned brown and shrivelled up.  There are flowers appearing everywhere now.  The epimedium sulphureum out the front is covered in tiny yellow flowers and although the big yellow daffodils have gone over,  the bright yellow mahonia is taking the spotlight.  The white periwinkle under the front hedge is covered in flowers and the odd little grape hyacinth is still hanging in there.  Out the back the pieris is looking good with all its little white bells, all the hellebores are in full flower now as are the fritillaria, some tulips, some narcissi, berberis, corydalis, wood anemone, pulmonaria and pink flowered heather.  The hebe always has a few flowers open.

There used to be three wood anemone plants there but now only one is left.  I have a few little ones growing in a pot so once they are a bit bigger I will plant them out.

I learned the other day that the beautiful colouration on fritillaries is known as tessellation – a geometric pattern and they don’t have petals or sepals but instead has tepals like tulips and lilies!  They come in completely  white versions, pale, darker and very dark version and I have every variation in my garden somewhere even the pure white ones.

I t hasn’t all gone according to plan though as it looks as though the choke berry  shrub has died and the beautiful flowering cherry (Shiroto Mount Fuji) is not looking very happy.  One whole limb is dead and I think it is very waterlogged and there may not be anything I can do to bring it back.

The geum mai tai,  which is in a sunny position, is looking lush whereas the orange flowered geum, which is in a more shady site,  has been eaten down to the leaf margins.  One of the huge cyclamen out of a row has rotted so has left a large gap in the row.  There are smaller ones that I can put in its place but I am not sure why that one rotted yet none of the others did – they are all planted at the same depth and are slightly proud of soil level so they shouldn’t get waterlogged in theory.

Something – possibly pigeons has been eating the marsh marigolds.

In the conservatory my ponytail plant has 3 branches but one of them dropped all of its leaves and I don’t know what to do about it.  I do know that it is pot bound and that may well be the cause but it is welded into that very large pot so it probably wouldn’t come out without damaging it further.

The good news is that in the conservatory my seedlings are doing ok and hopefully they will be big enough to sell at the plant sale in early May.  Our Duddingston Kirk Garden Club is folding but the Jock Tamson’s Gairden will be taking over the plant sale.