The first muscari bulb emerges in winter

Now that was a pleasing sight once the snow cleared away. I was plodding up to the potting shed to put away my loppers and I noticed something tiny and blue peeping out of the soil and mulch in the shade garden. The first muscari of the year.

Cause for celebration indeed. I don’t know if it is earlier than usual as I have only had these wonderful bulbs in for two years. And I didn’t notice when they bloomed in 2014.

But I will watch them carefully and see how they do.  The one menace I have is either a red squirrel or a pine marten which digs them up every now and then. I’m forever finding mulch all over the path and suspicious looking bulb-like gaps in the soil.

Hopefully I have planted enough to win that battle.

They haven’t noticed the pots and pots of tulips I have growing around the back of the potting shed.

They ended up in pots rather than the ground because of the flood.

You might know that we suffered a massive flood in September 2013. And that was around the time I took charge of the huge bulb order for that year.  I seem to remember fishing lots and lots of leucojum Gravetye Giant bulbs out of the swimming pool; and I lost a lot of anenomes that also were flushed out of their just planted spots.

I suspect I was so distracted by all the damage that I just didn’t know where to put the last few hundred tulip bulbs.  So into the pots they went and out of sight behind the shed.

Every gardener needs a hiding spot like that.

I don’t think they flowered particularly well in spring last year. But I am very pleased to see them coming up again. It is an unexpected treat. Now lets’s see if we get any colour out of them.

And yet another action shot of the narcissus in the duck pond garden. Again. Impatient? Moi?