Spring flowers

I thought I'd sneak in a quick post before I head off early tomorrow to Western Australia.  We have had two weeks of unseasonably warm spring weather and not much rain which I hope is not a sign of things to come.  Spring flowers are popping up and opening out everywhere and the first roses of the season should open while I'm away.  I went around this morning snapping these few blooms that caught my eye.

 

I love Lunaria and have always wanted to grow some in my garden.  I bought a packet of seeds years ago, lost them and then rediscovered them last year.  Although the packet was over 10 years old I thought I'd sow seeds into punnets to see if they would germinate which they did.  Now I have these pretty flowers in pink and white.

Foxgloves never cease to give me visual pleasure.  I love the spotted throat of the flowers and the way those bells flower up the stem.  The first time I heard of foxgloves was in the Poldark series of books which I read as a teen.  Demelza would gather bunches of foxgloves growing wild in Cornwall and when I discovered what they looked like, I couldn't quite believe something so beautiful would grow wild near the coast.  But of course I saw it with my own eyes in 2012 when we visited that very beautiful part of England.

 A few years ago when I was going for a winters walk, I came across a very tall shrub with bright and deep pink flowers.  Not much flowers in winter here so I was delighted to find a plant in a local garden flowering so beautifully in the depths of winter.  My great grandmother would often walk by gardens and take a little piece of a plant overhanging the fence and strike it for her own garden.  I figured I should follow her example and struck some pieces of the shrub which I believe to be Salvia wagneriana.  My little shubs are small yet but hope they will grow to be as tall and beautiful as those in my neighbours garden just a street away.

 This Azalea is blooming prolifically.  I've only a few Azaleas in the garden now as the others have sadly died.  Perhaps it's time to invest in a few new plants for next winter/spring.

 

 The apple tree is full of blossom this year, I hope that might mean a good crop of apples as long as we can keep the parrots away from them. 

  This next photo is not flower related but definitely worth talking about.  A recent grocery shopping trip resulted in an over abundance of Kent pumpkin and as I didn't want it to go to waste while I am away in Western Australia, I searched for pumpkin bread recipe on the Internet and found this one  and doubled the recipe.  The amount of mashed pumpkin I had only came to 1 1/2 cups whereas 2 cups was required for two loaves.  I also adjusted the sugar amount to 2/3 cup instead of 1 cup per loaf.  This pumpkin bread is light and fluffy and full of spicy flavour.  So the next time you have and excess of pumpkin on your hands, give this recipe a try.

 Anne  xx