The Sap Is Rising and Spring Has Sprung

Word is that our spring has been a good two weeks later than usual this year but now that it has finally arrived it is proceeding with a hiss and a roar.  All the plants and animals in the garden are going bonkers and can't be contained, we humans are just helpless bystanders as they proliferate and prosper. In the undergrowth there is a thicket of seedling natives coming up and needing to be mercilessly held in check if we aren't to see the garden become an overgrown wilderness

Even the camellias have thrown up seedlings all over the place and it will be interesting to see if they come true to type or if there might be some hybrids amongst them.  

Even indoors in the overwintered geraniums there are seedlings coming up.  You can hardly see it in this photo, but at the base of the geranium there are a couple of wildlings which have germinated and enjoyed the warm indoor conditions.

On of the goldfish looks as though it is about to have many goldfish babies (I don't know how many more will be able to populate the pond before saturation point is reached)

and the starlings are raising another brood in their favourite flat topped bird house.  (They still resolutely refuse to have anything to do with the pointy topped bird houses and I fear those will just be ornamental from now on, maybe I will paint them or cover them in mosaics though that obviously won't tempt these discerning birds.)  

Even the prunings from the garden have yielded flowers for indoors but there isn't really much reason to pick flowers because it's tempting to drift outside and admire things there instead, always planning how to improve things of course. 

One thing which has been a disappointment though is the way the more showy clematis have refused to prosper and the common varieties have put on a better show, which is so often the case.  It might have been better just to go with the "common or garden" instead of being swept away with admiration for the deep purple and cerise ones which are so beguiling in a garden centre always, but which seem to sulk and fail to thrive when put into a real patch of earth rather than being pampered in a  nursery.  

   

And of course there has been the perennial problem of what to do with the bulbs once they have flowered.  It's so tempting to cut off all the scruffy looking foliage so you don't have to watch it die back and look  scruffy, but you remember that the nutrients need to feed back into the bulb so there will be a good show next year ... what to do, what to do?  

There has been plenty going on inside this week as well.  The Lucy Boston obsession has taken me over, especially as I compare each week with my dear mama what new blocks she has completed.  I have to admit to being very undisciplined and making multitudes of the inside part of the block, and not completing any.  Must try harder and actually finish some blocks so I can make out that mine are more striking and attractive.  

 Mr Shoestring has been in disgrace because he carelessly threw Number One Son's favourite sweater into the washing machine and turned it into a tortured, felted article which would barely fit a teddy bear.  I didn't like to exclaim with glee and say that it would come in very handy for the quilt with woolen swallows I am making so I kept quiet and commiserated, and even Number One Son was very accepting and not too cross with Mr Shoestring, so it was a good result all round really.

And best of all to be outside

but even when indoors lots to look at, plan and think about.  Hope you are doing plenty of whatever warms the cockles of your heart.