Spring garden

I always think of this time as the blue and pink period in my back garden. (The front has that flaming azalea, plus another two on the way that are variants of flame and cream, so...) Before the weeds become too exuberant, before the astilbe (is that how you spell it?) falls over the path (pink, yes, but dominant) and the other large shrubs have their day, the bluebells and London Pride spring up all over the place and I rather like it. They're not native bluebells, and their are pink bells and white bells as well, but their scent is lovely and they'll soon be over. 

This afternoon I attacked the border outside the kitchen window, the favourite loo for the marauding neighbourhood cats and until today increasingly thick with weeds. Two years ago I made the mistake of sowing a packet of wildflower seeds here; they never actually produced many flowers but they have a tendency to return. Apart from them, there's the berberis - you can make out one of its lethal branches in their photo - and the wild geraniums with their straggling stems and tiny pink flowers. 

Reader, I hoed them all.