How is spring doing?

It is! I have lots of daffodils, hellebores, a few tulips are out (very early variety) and the pulmonarias are emerging. Crocuses are just about hanging in, and a few remaining snowdrops in dark corners. the mahonias are fully out and the catkins are smothering the corkscrew hazel. I picked a huge bunch of daffodils yesterday, and a couple of smaller bunches for the kitchen and dining room. Wonderful.

Our daffs are out - and fighting their way through last years dead laaf spikes as neither of us were well enough to deal with them. But they are winning so far!

The hellebores are also out - every time they bloom I wish I had chosen a different colour - they are a very dark dusky pink and not half as cheerful as I would like!

A lilac bush I planted last year has come into leaf bud and I am totally amazed that it survived the winter and the slashing and hacking of the man who mows our lawn and kept running into it.

Our hellebores are also out, and beautiful. We have a very dark red/purple one, pale pink and white doubles, they are lovely. The mini daffs in the pots outside are in full bloom. DH has just been dividing and repotting his cannas. Our two year old magnolia has one flower bud. I'll try to post a photo of the hellebores but don't expect too much as I'm not very good with technology.

Everything is jogging along nicely in our garden but the glorious clump of Daffs that have given us so much Spring pleasure over the years have produced only one single lonely bloom. Can I ask all you gardeners what to do? Shall we leave them to see what happens next year or have they had their time? They came with the house so am thinking they have been in the ground for forty years or so.

Has it been a bit dry? Sometimes that can stop them flowering. You could try feeding them now, with bulb food or phosphorus or something, so that they may be better next year, they do sound rather old. You could dig them all up, put some manure into the soil and replace the bulbs, or try reusing the best ones. I would try feeding them now while they are in foliage, anyway. Give them one more year. Some people feed theirs every other year. I just sprinkle manure on top of them every autumn but a box of food is easier for most people.

East Midlands. - Daffs are out, Hellibores are beautiful and some primulas are just getting into flower.

The Kerria japonica is very reluctantly coming into flower and bits of the other japonicas have a few flowers. Forsythia looks a bit grim.
I can remember a few years back having these bushes flowering, unusually, just after Christmas. x

The viburnum bodantense goes on and on, now better than ever. The yellow pom-poms of the cornus mas are nearly over but have bloomed for over a month. And the winter-flowering honeysuckle - not a climber but a big shrub - is still in bloom. There will be a lot of pruning to do when all those are over. Rhododendron praecox is a lovely splash of colour. The honeysuckle with variegated foliage is looking good and will soon be flowering.

My heather bank is gorgeous at the moment. Have had it for forty odd years now, with a bit of replenishing now and again. The snowdrops and crocus have gone over now but the daffs and the natural primroses are mostly out. Little Blue anenomones just starting to come out too. And the Jews mallow. The muscari Will be next, and that always needs thinning. I just wish it wasn't so chilly out there.

I have still got last year's seed head to cut back on some plants. I think the Goldfinches must have finished with them by now.

Is your soil acid then jing? only we are on chalk and apart from one sort we can't grow heathers.

Thanks for your advice janerowena will feed them and give them one more year.

The hostas are all peeping up through, most of them will be green and cream but I do have one massive elephant's ear hosta that has spread well over the years.
The last rose has just gone from last year as the new growth is showing. Today I cut back my climbing rose that covers the side of the garage. A beautiful deep strawberry colour and we look forward to it every June.
The plum tree blossom is just starting to burst.
The two apple trees are a little slower.

I just chopped back our fuschias today - 'prune when all chance of frost has gone'
Now the forecast is for -3 tonight.
Silly me!

The crocuses and primroses are still going strong and the daffs are only just coming out - we have very few this year too, Juliette. When it happened once before I threw a good sprinkling of Growmore on them afterwards and they have been very 'bloomful' for years until now.

Is it too late to wrap some horticultural fleece round your fuschias? In my last garden I had four small apple trees set into the lawn and when a late frost threatened to kill the blossom I went out with the fleece and they looked like a line of white ghosts in the garden.

It's never too late. I am forever throwing fleece over my apple trees when frost threatens - I keep them pruned down low like a hedge so that I can reach.

No, whitewave, our soil is chalky. We only grow chalk tolerant heathers. We found quite a few varieties.And () we put loads of peat round each plant when we first planted it. Goes on fine on its own now.

Daffodils in abundance and so delightful to see,my neighbour has a huge amount of ceramic pots outside her front door just bursting with daffs all standing to attention and looking so attractive when you first turn the corner into her Road.

It's miserable here, cold and drizzly, and same forecast for the next week, so nothing doing in the garden. It's too wet to cut the grass which is growing fast, so hope our old mower can cope when it does dry out.
It was like this last spring too, we planted a few things and they just slowly wilted, so probably wait until late April/ may.

Lovely day for gardening here in South Yorkshire - sunny and warm. I found all sorts of things I thought had died off and disappeared last year now peeping through - rudbeckias, red lobelia, echinacea. Marked them all before DH gets his mitts on the hoe. Hellebores are spectacular and the bees are all over them today, and the fritillaries are well on their way. I was hoping to get some agapanthus and spider lily bulbs planted in pots but we bought some compost last week from the garden centre and it's absolutely sodden and freezing, though we have had it in the garage since we bought it. So the bulbs will have to wait till it dries out a bit otherwise they'll rot. But Spring is sprung! Ain't it grand?

It's been a beautiful day here on Wirral. We planted broad beans at the allotment this morning and then tidied the back garden after lunch. I sat in the sun with a cup of tea and a book - lovely!

Thought that I would start to leave some material for the birds to use in their nests - has anyone any ideas of stuff that is handy in the house?

This garden is quiet new to me so I had no idea how many daff bulbs were in one of the beds.
My dilemer is: I don't want to leave them all in there until they have died off completely. They look so untidy lol. The only other way, as I see it, is to take them up (after flowering) and buy new ones next year. They're cheap enough. What are your thoughts?

Bits of pure wool are best I think. Horrible week-end here, very cold with the East wind blowing right through your bones. Woke up to thick fog, which is unusual up here in the mountains- but wind has dropped, and sun has burnt the fog- so a lovely Spring day ahead again.

petra well us gardeners put up with the untidyness! It doesn't last long and all the time you are working with nature - well she really isn't very tidy is she!? But it is your garden so you do exactly as you please.