April 2nd Winter Returns to Mullion !

It has been beautiful weather , warm , sunny and blue skies ......
   I also got stung by a wasp on Sunday ,yep , I sat down on a wasp at church ....my goodness me..... pain !
   We saw a Swallow , on our way to the pharmacist in Helston ...which cheered me up a little bit. For me this always signifies the beginning of Summer .
 The pharmacist however told me that they have stopped selling Wasp-eze and gave me a tube of ointment which really didn't help much.
We drove home and I sat with an ice-pack on it..it pretty much dominated the rest of my Sunday afternoon .

Yes the weather has actually been very warm indeed ..I had to go in at one point it was  too hot for me .

We had really got stuck in to tidying the garden after all the ravages of winter .
Lots of things are beginning to bloom such as this Giant Echium pushing up it's wonderful inflorescence ..soon the bees will dance up and down in a never ending spiral . A friend on the Lizard had given me these three little plants each one a different type of Echium....you can see there is one against the fence which is doing well but not flowering yet and the one in the middle which is not looking very happy at all..but I,m not giving up on it yet !

              Pretty Cowslips are popping up everywhere and Primroses .

 The lovely Snake's Head Fritillary is such an interesting flower with it's chequered patterned petals .

                Hazel rods cut ready for bean poles , frames and wigwams .

It is way to early for sowing Runner-beans or French Beans yet, I,ll be doing that towards the end of April ...depending on what the weather is doing then and if you live further North then maybe you should wait until May ..check out your last frost dates for where you live etc .
 I have sown peas and Broadbeans though , they are o.k to sow now under cover and mine are about an inch tall right now up in modules in the shed window .
 Some people sow them direct.....I prefer to sow in modules or gutters and pamper them a little before I plant them out .
 I do not like to set traps to kill mice , there is no need for that . Mice leave the peas and beans alone once they have germinated and grown on a bit .

I have cut and sorted poles for my Runner-bean frames and wigwams for the French beans  and Pea sticks .

 The weather became too hot and I decided to leave it until we get some rain to soften the ground , that I can push them in more easily .

 I pruned these two bushes which have always been sort of cube shaped even when we first moved here nearly fifteen years ago . Here I have just started to prune bush on the left . I have kept it up all this time , but the branches were getting tighter and tighter and some were dying off , others were reverting to plain green . So I needed to really open them up let in the light and rejuvenate them . Deep down inside there are tiny shoots coming and they have the whole of the Summer to recover .  I,m not sure if I will topiary them into cubes again or just let them be natural bushes . I need to think about it .
   I forgot to take an after picture , sorry about that !

This morning  2nd April looking out through my bedroom window are very gloomy looking clouds .

                          Click on this picture to see the hail coming down !

The weather certainly has changed . It is very cold and we have heavy showers of rain with hailstones .

                                        ..... brrrr..... it is icy cold !

                                         Crab Apple blossom .

                           I hope all the flowers will not be too damaged !

                                                         Azaleas.

                                                          Camellias.

     
               I don't know what this one is ...it is a lovely South African Plant .

      The Acer's delicate leaves and flowers on Acer " Bloodgood " wont be enjoying the icy showers .

                                                        Hellebores .

                            Bluebells are flowering everywhere now too .

My pots of all sorts of lovely things flowering on the deck of the Summer-house .

 Now it is so cold again , we should all go back into hibernation for the next three weeks ( apparently ) until the sun returns .
  That was my nicely folded fresh and clean laundry ! Sigh ! Aah..but she looks so sweet !  :)