April has been a funny ole month – a northerly cold wind blew throughout most of the early days with some wintry showers thrown into the mix, but most days have been sunny and dry, although temperatures barely reaching double figures and down to 0°C at night, but fortunately no frosts here. I have managed to get some wires strung along my fence for my three new clematis and an old rose to climb along. Said rose has been clipped and tied in so I am hoping that this year there will be more flowers and not all at the top! And my hellebore seedlings from a few years ago all have new pots and new compost and the dozen or so slimy assassins hiding in their roots have been exterminated.
Doing this monthly is a little tricky now that there are lots of things to show, but here are six pretty things that appeared this month. Above you have the view of my new shady bed from the back of the garden with many of my favourite colours appearing – the golds and greens and buttery coppers and the blues.
1. April is not April without the masses of Forget-me-Nots that explode into frothy heads of cerulean blueness. No matter how many seedlings I remove in the autumn they are everywhere as you can see, even in some of my pots! But they are such a beautiful foil for the narcissi and tulips that I really don’t mind.
2. The next blue is unexpected and must have just been in the compost that I used to top up my raised Bee & Butterfly bed. A mixed bag of Anemone coronaria ‘De Caen’ corms were bought a few years ago and I really must buy some more for next year as they really are stunning. Try looking up the individual varieties.
3. The third blue has a flower very similar to the Forget-me-Nots, but a very different leaf. In fact the flowers are that tiny bit smaller and tiny bit stronger colour. This one is Brunnera ‘Sea Heart’ with its silver green-veined heart-shaped leaves.
4. Another paler shade of blue in the garden at this time of year is my Pulmonaria / Lungwort. I thought maybe I had lost it this year because last month there was barely a sign of the leaves. I have to cut them back in the autumn because they always get mildew and go black. But no, here they are again. Possibly ‘Opal’, but I didn’t plant them so that’s a guess. Again, nice spotted foliage, for now.
5. Moving away from the blues now, let’s have some contrasting colours. Wallflowers. An old-fashioned favourite, I like to use these plants as toppers for my tulips. Old ones were planted on the Cornish wall where they are flowering again, but I bought some new plants last autumn which are just beginning to show their colours.
These should be bright enough for Becky’s bright squares too.
6) Calendula officinalis / pot marigold. I sowed some seeds directly into this bed last year and some have continued to flower throughout the winter. I had a lovely dark one called ‘Indian Prince’ which may return if it self-seeded, but I haven’t seen any sign of it yet. Calendula are cheerful flowers and I have some new seeds to sow in a month or so’s time in my herb bed. See how perfectly the photo-bombing blues surround this flower?
There are of course dozens of tulips in my garden now, but quite a few of the older ones have gone over already. I shall be doing a post about the bulbs soon – too many for a sixer – but I will be back next month to join the party with some more pretties. The header photo was taken from my upstairs window on April 1st with the willow trees just coming into bud.
As always, if you want a peek over other people’s garden walls then please pop over to our host, the lovely Jon, AKA ‘The Propagator’ where you find links to many more wonderful garden enthusiasts from all over the world.
See here for the participant’s guide.
Cornwall in Colours 
I was amazed by your photographs . They are so beautiful 😍