Spring, early March

The garden - or back yard - still seems very bare. Today there is glorious sunshine, and the temperature has gone into double figures. Even if that is just for today, it is lovely to be outside. I have been clearing out the garden, cutting back dead plants, collecting dead leaves and rubbish so that any bulbs will be more visible. 

The daffodils are standing high, but not yet in bloom, the buds thickening. They are in the shade of trees and shrubs, so will flower a bit later than the ones lining some of our local roads. 

 But the various crocuses have opened their hearts to the light and the sun. They multiply each year and there is nothing I have to do to achieve that. Nature is sometimes very generous.

 The different variaties of Helleborus are hard to photograph as the bend their flowers towrds the ground.

An unusual picture of a helleborus taken towards the sky. Pot luck really. I could not see what I was doing not having a screen which can be turned.

Although I have had snowdrops in my front garden for a month now, they are not half as spectacular as the drifts of snowdrops in the nearby wood.