Heads Up

The increasing sunshine is bringing the best out of the pulsatillas.  No ladybird today but these are the flowers that featured three days ago, then hanging their heads in the rain.  Blue, purple, red and pink there are plenty more to come.

Either side of making and eating Sunday lunch I worked outside, mostly on the oldest of my raised beds.  It was laid out when Jamie was a toddler, he's 15 now so while it's pleasing to report that quite a lot from the early plantings has survived, one or two things have rather taken over.  A creeping teucrium has run  under the slate top dressing, not too difficult to remove and the bulbs grow through it easily enough.  One of said bulbs has proved an awful thug, spreading over a wide area .... but never flowering.  That's been more tricky as I want to completely eradicate it, which has meant digging out a number of other things it had 'invaded.'  Slow work but I've managed to reclaim lots of little rooted pieces of some plants and placed cuttings of others in the greenhouse.  There's still a creeping phlox to deal with that has covered almost a third of the bed.  It will be easy to remove but I'll see it flower before dealing with it.  There's some fun ahead introducing some new plants to fill the large spaces I'm creating :-)