Easter Daffodils at Balbirnie, Fife

Posted on 12 April 2020 by Katrina

Let’s go on a wee virtual walk on this lockdown Easter Sunday. When I took these photos of the daffodils on the Balbirnie Estate/Park in Fife last week the daffodils were in full bloom and as usual getting a bit battered by the wind, it always amazes me how much bad weather they can put up with, they’re obviously not as delicate as they look.

Some of the boundary stones that edge the Balbirnie driveway have faint ancient markings on them but most must have been placed there in fairly recent years. These stones aren’t far from the Balbirnie Standing Stones and they date back to the Bronze Age.

The daffodils below are growing in what counts as the rough of the golf course I suppose and we sometimes end up helping a golfer to find their ball. One day last month, in the glory days before the course was shut to golfers because of the lockdown, we witnessed one golfer whacking his ball in the rough and he managed to bounce it off a tree really hard, it bounced back with such force and ended up further back than the start. It might have killed him if it had hit him, but as it was – he almost died of embarrassment I think!

Even a water hazard looks quite scenic when framed by tree branches I think. We usually steer well away from the fairways when we go for our walks although in theory in Scotland they can’t stop anyone from just wandering over the course even as people play. But we noticed that the dog walkers are claiming the course at the moment – with no worries about anyone yelling FORE at them as they amble along. Every cloud has a silver lining for someone I suppose. Anyay, I hope you enjoyed your virtual breath of fresh air, especially if you are unlucky enough to be stuck in a flat.

Spring flowers in my garden

Posted on 5 March 2019 by Katrina

As the weather has been unseasonally mild I’ve been able to potter around in the garden a bit earlier than usual. I have no illusions that this is the end of winter for us though as we’re more likely to get snow at Easter than at Christmas, but the spring flowers are loving the weather and the snowdrops have been blooming for ages now. The ones that I transplanted for the wedding decorations are over and done now, they didn’t like being taken indoors.

These crocuses adored the sunshine. I’d never seen them open so far before.

Some of the wedding decoration snowdrops – below.

The miniature daffodils have survived the rough winds we’ve been having over the past few days.

The purple haze behind the daffodils below is a spring flowering heather, so the garden is beginning to look quite cheerful again, but I’m not going to clear all of the winter detritus away until I’m sure that the cold weather has gone. All those dead bits of last year’s plants help to protect them from frosts which I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of.

My spring garden

Posted on 11 April 2017 by Katrina

Although I say it myself, my garden is looking very colourful at the moment. I especially love the pansies in the photo below, but in reality they look more purple than they are here.

My so-called rockery, which isn’t very rocky – is full of primulas and the aubretia is just beginning to bloom too. There’s always work going on so buckets and tools are likely to be lurking in the background as you can see.

I wasn’t going to bother planting any daffodil bulbs as there are so many wild ones growing around where I live but I couldn’t resist planting some miniature ones.

Below are some of the wild daffodils just outside my back gate.

Or are these ones narcissi, I’m never quite sure? As you can see – some of the trees have really started to green up now, it seemed along time a-coming!

Spring Flowers

Posted on 8 February 2013 by Katrina

How are you coping with the winter? I shouldn’t really complain because we’ve had practically no snow, so far, but all the towns around us had snow which means that we haven’t been very far afield, after all there’s no point in driving into dodgy weather and icy roads.

But I can’t wait for spring and I’ve been having a look at my garden, the daffodils are just green spikes poking about two or three inches above the earth, and today I discovered two snowdrops which should be flowering in a few days. There should be more of them but I see it as something of a miracle that there are any about to flower at all because the soil seems have been sodden for most of last year really and I thought that the bulbs might have rotted.

Anyway the fact that my garden was such a disappointment last year is making me all the more impatient for things to get going now, so I ended up buying myself some spring flowers and I thought you might like a glimpse of them.

Well, they’ve cheered me up!

More spring plants

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Katrina

This is euphorbia ‘Fireglow’ and it disappears completely over the winter but it comes back with a vengeance in the spring because it’s spreading like mad, even into the grass despite there being a stone barrier. It does look lovely when it’s fully grown although I think the new growth is a bit brash and phallic looking at the moment.

Some of the pale daffodils in my front garden.

For some reason this pulmonaria which goes by the horrible common name of lungwort has come out looking really insipid. It is in fact three different colours – blue, pink and lilac.

Spring Garden

Posted on 25 March 2011 by Katrina

These are a few of the photographs which I took in my garden today and yesterday. I’m still not used to our new camera as you can see from this blurred photo.

These are looking a bit battered about the edges now but they’re still nice and colourful, if you don’t look too closely.