April Flowers, April Showers for GBBD

It's half way through the month again and time for another post for Garden Bloggers Blooms Day, a tradition started by Carol of May Dreams Gardens. Yes, I know I'm one day early but I won't have time to post tomorrow, the 15th. I've started off this post with a pic of my pear tree in flower, always such a wonderful sight to see those precious blossoms.
And we have more flowering fruits such as white currants,
gooseberries,
apples,
Amelanchier, that will later produce many fruits much to the delight of the birds,
and strawberries. But these are not ordinary strawberries but ornamental ones; they produce fruits but they are hollow inside so not for eating. They do make excellent ground cover though.
The violets are still going strong in my garden as they have been all winter long.
They are grown in pots, hanging baskets and window boxes, and have done such a good job in cheering my garden up since last October.
Although the majority of daffodils is gone now, we still have some in flower such as this one,
and this one and Thalia, the gorgeous white fragrant daffodil.
One of the usual suspects to flower at this time of year is the forget-me-not. When thinking of forget-me-nots most people tend to think of blue, but they are to be had in pink and white too.
Last year I had white ones too but they didn't seed themselves all over my garden as I can't find even one single one. Snif! But the pink ones did return though and so did the traditional blue ones.
At this time of year we have quite a few blue flowers such as Periwinkle,
Rosemary,
grape hyacinths,
and lungwort.
Spring has really settled in my garden now and lots of flowers are all singing, all dancing for sheer joy. The weather has been fine these last few days. Since last Tuesday we've had lovely and sunny days, even last weekend, when they predicted cold and rainy weather. And during those sunny days many plants literally popped up all over my garden and those already there were doing their best to make it for Blooms Day.

One of my favourite colours in the garden is white, I even have a completely white garden, but not right now. In Spring even my white garden is colourful. After those dull, grey winter days it's colour that I need, and heaps of it!
Sure, there is white of course but also
pink, yellow, blue, purple, burgundy and almost black.
Perhaps you are thinking "I'm getting the whole flowers aspect of this post but what about the showers thingy?" Well, the showers we're having now, it's pouring with rain at the mo, which is good as I was scraping the barrel, the rain barrel that is. After a whole week of sunshine my rain barrels were getting quite empty but right now the water is running off the roofs of my shed and greenhouse, gurgling through the spouts and pouring joyfully into the rain barrels.
I enjoyed myself a lot earlier this morning when it was still dry outside and I was hunting for blooms to show. As per usual I found quite a few unexpected ones, such as the ones above. These trailing plants seem to have survived the cold winter and are flowering now. It looks like I can use them a second time in my hanging baskets, which is great.
I was also surprised to find that my whopping great Portuguese Laurel hedge is in flower too.
This is a passalong plant I got from friends of mine; the pic doesn't do it justice as its flowers are white, mauve, blue and kind of pinkish, very pretty and subtle.
Another surprise was this yellow wallflower that decided to grow in amongst my Rosemary.
No surprise is this Hellebore orientalis that has been flowering for quite a long time now and still going strong. It is setting seed though, so I expect it will stop flowering in a few weeks' time.
One of the tiniest blooms in my garden is produced by the cute Cymbalaria muralis. It is called wall snapdragon ( muurleeuwenbek) in Dutch. I love this plant as it flowers for such a long, long time and with such pretty mauve and soft yellow flowers too.
Centranthus ruber is about to burst into song and, with a bit of luck, will still be singing and flowering at the end of October. This plant is certainly earning its keep.
Another surprise find was Honesty in bloom. I have them in pink, purple and white.
Pulsatilla has almost finished flowering now, I wish they flowered for a longer time than just a few weeks.
The flowers on this Bergenia have survived the frost, hail, sleet and snow round Easter time as it was still in bud then. My other Bergenias that flowered much earlier this year were not so fortunate.
And lookee here, the first Columbine in flower, isn't it absolutely pretty? I love that soft yellow, don't you, but I like the stronger yellows too. For me there is no colour that says Spring to me more than yellow.
S P R I N G ! ! !

I've been picking flowers for the vase every month of the year. During the winter months the bouquets were often small but still great fun. Now the bunches of flowers I pick are getting more and more substantial. This one is adding a bit of spring to my living room right now. Lovely, don't you think?
I think I will pick a bunch for my Mum too, inbetween the showers, to take to hospital this evening. I'm sure it will cheer her up.She's much better now, going from stength to strength I'm happy to say. Thank you all for your kind words, positive thoughts, prayers and best wishes for my Mum's health.

copyright 2008 Y.E.W. Heuzen

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You cn no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)