In A Vase On Monday - Spring Bits & Bobs - plus a garden update

Hello Everyone,

Today is the first day of spring and so to celebrate I have a vase of seasonal bits and bobs  for Cathy's In A Vase.

A wander round the garden today was very cheering. Not only was there green shoots popping up all over the place, all promising lots of colour to come, but also quite a few spring flowers - among them cowslips (primula veris), lungwort (pulmonaria 'Blue Ensign'), helleborus niger 'Christmas Carol' - ready to be picked and popped in a vase.

Cowslips - Primula veris

Helleborus niger 'Christmas Carol' and lungwort, Pulmonaria 'Blue Ensign'

I added, just because I couldn't resist it, the acid green foliage of an alpine aquilegia, not in flower just yet but it won't be long now.

For me this combination of blue and yellow just says springtime even though, dotted around the garden, there are just a few other colours, mainly from the old wallflowers that have been producing a bloom or two since January but are now really getting going. Here's a few shots of what I spotted during my wander.

Wallflowers

And here's the lungwort and cowslips before picking. According to the label for this lungwort is also known as "Blue Cowslip".

Lungwort

Cowslips

I couldn't resist taking a photograph of some of the flower buds that are popping up - here's a couple.

Clematis 'Broughton Bride'

Tulips

And there's no forgetting the many daffodils that are still brightening up my days.

The windblown flowers are cut to fill even more vases with their golden loveliness.

Cathy is celebrating five years of blogging at Rambling In The Garden so do pop over to see the fabulous vase, hand painted by her daughter, saved for this very occasion.

In A Vase On Monday - Hello Spring!

The flowers of late winter and early spring 

occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size.

~ Gertrude S. Wister

This week's In A Vase On Monday offering is the tiniest of posies. There's miniature daffodils, Narcissus 'Tête á Tête', cowslips, Primula Veris, and the last of the winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum. Because they are all so tiny, this amber glass jug was the only one I had small enough to hold them. 

And so I say, hello Spring! Surely it won't be too long before I'll be picking the bigger daffodils, followed by celandines and then the bluebells. I can't wait.

And now an update on the second vase I posted last week.

The red stemmed dogwood, Cornus Alba 'Siberian Pearls' has, after being in the red and white polka dot jug for two weeks, has provided me with quite a surprise by not only putting on leaf but also by bursting into flower!

Enjoy your week,