I'm writing it this time...

 

I could whinge about how much toil it was, to move the soil (and isn't that a nice rhyme, while we planted this next to the Rhododendron - not Thyme!), but anyway... I haven't got the time to waffle here, but this is a lovely Acer palmatum 'Chitoseyama' we bought last weekend, and planted yesterday. Claire always wanted to have an Acer, and I really like them too. However, the final word about which variety to get was really hard work, and then we went to RHS Highness and even they didn't have all the varieties - I mean, come on, how could they?
Another item of our loot - you should have seen Claire drooling over all these flowers, but she needed forceful dragging away from the Fritilleries ... Anyway, where was I... oh, yes, another item of our loot was a Dogwood, or Cornus alba 'Sibirica' which has fire-red and orangey stems in the autumn and winter, and is green during the rest of the year - so in England, whenever it's not really cold and not too sunny. Anyway, here is the picture of our speciplant:

Okay it's the red-ish thing, hidden by the daffodils. It won't grow too high, but next year one should see it (that's the Cornus, not the daffs) above everything else around there.

Finally, in our competition of Scilla of the month, here is a first photo of one of these lovely flowers, which Claire is extremely fond of, and I think that they are pretty pretty (you know since when can straight blokes really enjoy blue flowers!?! Well, here is me trying, okay? Got a problem with that? No, me neither. Anyway, here is the photo: