And now round the back

In my last post I updated on how the flower bed at the front of the house is performing  but things are also on the move in the back garden too.

I posted earlier about the crab apple - Malus Profusion dressed in its best clothes. Although lots of the blossom has fallen it is still hanging on to its flowers although the deep pink is fading a little and the bed beneath the tree is scattered with dark pink confetti which you can just make out in the picture on the top right.

The two top photos are taken of the new flower bed under this crab apple. Although the clematis that I planted last year are still fairly small, one - White Moth is now flowering. In the photo on the top right the tiny blue flowers which look a bit like forget-me-nots, belong to brunnera - Jack Frost and the slightly larger flowers are omphalodes - Cherry Ingram

The photo bottom left shows the marsh marigolds and water hawthorn flowering in the pond behind which, if I had allowed, you would see a scene of fairly total devastation where the summer house will be erected. Bottom right is phlox subulata - Emerald Cushion Blue which is planted in a stone planter.

Our other crab apple tree - John Downie is now flowering.

Under its branches is another flower bed which although not a well 'covered' as the bed at the front of the house does have some splashes of colour.

It's not only the flowers that are providing colour though. The flower bed above meets a shrub border which you can see at the top of the photo on the left. Although this border is in line for a little bit of renovation work at the moment the shrubs are also providing some welcome colour, especially the pieris - Forest Flame.

Another shrub providing colour is an aucuba

This small bed is separated from the new blue and white bed by the wiilow screen and at the other side of this the new acer and hydrangea quercifola are growing well.

If you would like to see larger versions of the photos I've added a photo album with extra photos on my May diary web page - let's face it there wasn't too much else to add to gardening activities for the beginning of May!