Flowering Plum, Wild Plum and Red Dead-Nettle

The warm and sunny weather continues and the garden is becoming greener by the day. The Red Dead-Nettle (Lamium purpureum) has been in flower for a number of weeks. This plant moved into the garden without our help and is scattered here and there, mainly in short grass, next to pathways.

The wild plum hedge continues to blossom.

This decorative flowering plum does not produce fruit but has delicate, downward-facing, early blossoms on crooked branches. It has lichen growing on it within a few years of planting: the delicate cool green of the lichen looks beautiful against the pale pink flowers.

More wild plum blossom against the blue sky. The large female bumble bees have been making the most of this abundant blossom, crawling from one blossom to the next. Honey bees are also regular visitors.

Pets in the Garden, More Crocuses and Plum Blossom

 Spring is in the air and the pets are enjoying the garden. Rob and I take a daily walk around, noticing the changes and new plants appearing.

 

Russian Comfrey. We have a big patch of this at the foot of an evergreen bush and hazel tree. The flowers appear very early in the year (February), before there are any insects to enjoy them. It makes a good ground cover plant, and doesn't mind a shady spot.

Our senior pup, Brock, now 12 years old.

Minnow cat is 9 years old, and not in the mood for being photographed today.

The perfect blossoms of the wild plum tree. It produces little yellow plums later in the year, which are rather bland-tasting, but make good fruit crumble or jam.

The crocuses continue to add colour. We even saw our first two bumble bees on these flowers today, even though it got very cold in the shade. Rob administered some sugary syrup to one poor bee that had become almost comatose. It hungrily sucked it up.