Sunday 1 March 2009

Sunny Spring Sunday


I think I can officially announce Spring has arrived for me.

We’ve now got a fair few plants in bloom and others coming through, mainly excited to see the Dicentra is on its way.

First up we have the arguing Goldies:
(btw, notice the one Goldie to the left eating I assume some seeds. It's a Verbena, hadn't ever heard they'd eat the seeds... Interesting to see! Especially since they're ignoring the sunflowers I've left to go to seed... Haha)


Then onto the plants

Iris

Snowdrop

Cyclamen with Iris in the background

Dicentra

Aquilegia

Unknown, I think it’s Icelandic poppy… I didn’t realise they were perennials though??

Crocus

I should probably stop there since you’re all asleep now… The Blossom flowers can come another day [:

10 comments:

ShySongbird said...

Hi Liz,

What beautiful photos, the colours in the flower pics are glorious. I wish I could make more sense of the machinations of my camera but it's still all a bit of a mystery!

Liz said...

Thank you, I'm thrilled you like them!

The best way to learn is through playing, experiment to find out exactly what each setting does :)

Tricia Ryder said...

Lovely flower pics as usual Liz.

Interesting that the goldies are eating the Verbena Bonariensis seeds. I have a clump of them in my garden which, last Autumn, I didn't cut back and the Goldies loved them. First time I've seen them on it!

So I won't be cutting it back this year either!

Liz said...

Thank you Tricia, I'm glad you like them :)

The only reason I left the Verbena there was because it was flowering pretty much until the snow hit! I couldn't believe he had such a long flowering period!!!

Woooooo.

But since the Goldies obviously also enjoy eating the seeds, I'll leave it next year too, I do need to get more since I only have the one - this year was a test year, I'd never had verbena before so didn't know its spread and such. Now I know it pretty much just goes vertically and doesn't have masses of foliage at the base I will plant more around it (also seen a lovely different verbena I'm going to get, with the flowers on enchanting spires)

Shirley said...

Hi again Liz :-)

Great to see your goldfinches back… ours are coming back in now too. The siskins have joined them and although small in numbers at the moment I can see that they are slowly increasing. The greenfinches are increasing too.

Yes, interesting to see the goldfinch at the verbena seeds. I had teasel for ages waiting by the feeders but hey last week I finally cut it down as the goldfinches didn’t take any interest. It just got in the way fro the other birds and some did try (briefly) to land on it! I wonder if some of the new ones coming in might have… Ah well. I might tie them to branches of a tree to see what happens ;-)

Great plant pics, what wonderful images and great colours. Loved the buds and cyclamen especially but the last crocus shot is wonderful :-D

Have a great week :-D

Liz said...

Hi Shirl, nice of you to drop by thank you for the lovely compliments, I hope you have a lovely week too :)

The Goldies have been around for a while now, but more have since joined, obviously similar to last year I assume where I have one breeding pair with their babies in late summer and then a group of 6 that visit, seemingly with no babies, so I'll assume they're bachelors!

With any luck, this year I'll have more breeding pairs - I think last year we only had the one pair because I didn't move in until April, and it took at least a month before I saw my first Goldie, so I may have been too late.

No siskins here sadly, I've never actually seen one before either… Oh well, I did have high hopes for them to visit over winter.

It’s a shame your teasel didn't work… I've sown some more seeds (I did some last summer too, but nothing appears to have come up, grrr) but it sounds like they may not eat the seeds anyway!

Quantum Tiger said...

Beautiful crocus photos! Thanks!

The Quacks of Life said...

nice pics liz

ruddy cold out there this morning, sharp frost

Liz said...

Quantum - Thank you for the compliment! :)

Aye Pete, sure was - and I'm freezing now!

I can't believe how suddenly it's happened, only a couple of days ago I turned the radiators down as it was too warm!

Yoke, said...

Love te photos, Liz; you've captured the character of the early lives in your own way, which I like so much!

I can picture you lying on the grass/path camera at different angles in your hands.
Thanks. :)