Garden notes, mid - late April

The inner garden is certainly full of colour, mostly from tulips and three year old wallflowers! We are enjoying most of the wallflowers but one or two are going to have to come out! They are big now, and the yellow colour rather overpowering. That's the trouble with buying an anonymous tray of Persian Carpet wallflowers in the autumn. It really is a lucky dip and so when they are planted out there is no knowing how the colours are going to sit next to their neighbour, come flowering time! I am not keen on the very strong yellow, especially when it rocks up next to a vibrant red tulip! But in these strange and constricting times, their colour combination is alive and stimulating!

I have a real soft spot for this little wallflower. I love the colour, but most of all I love the fact that it is has seeded itself there, being true to itself (wallflower), it is a self isolating, glorious little plant!

And the outer garden, the bed along the length of the cottage is looking very bright and breezy. It's done very well, considering most of its colour comes from banished wallflower plants looking for a new home, having outgrown our tiny inner garden!

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In a vase on Monday - colour

The intense colours in my vase this week come from nasturtiums, sweetpeas and a single glorious zinnia! Their beauty and love of life speak for themselves and need no further words from me! Enjoy!

Colonsay postcards - on arrival

The first thing I do, once we have unpacked our car, which has been groaning with all the stuff we need for a week's stay in the holiday cottage, is head for the outer gardens of Colonsay House. It is a place of wonder for me! I particularly love the leaves of the giant rhododendrons. There are many different varieties, all planted in the early 1930s. The outer gardens are generally overgrown, having had little tending over the decades. That makes them even more magical! The old woodmill falls apart a little more every year, but that's fine by me because I love corrugated iron and especially if it's rusted! And of course the bees. Colonsay's beekeeper, Andrew Abrahams, has one of his apiaries on the edge of the pine wood. So lovely - the hum of busy bees and the heady smell of the pines. We are here - finally! Delayed by four months by the wretched virus, but now I am on holiday! Hooray!

Found items IAVOM

I am on holiday on the Inner Hebridean island of Colonsay. It is my happy place. Thoughts of Colonsay rattle around in my head each and every day I am not here! I haven't got a vase to share this week but some lovely things I have found over the past few days, which are just as beautiful as a vase of flowers! I hope you agree! Here are some leaves of giant rhododendrons, growing in the outer gardens of Colonsay House. Some skeleton leaves of magnolia. The dried stem of a kelp seaweed. A couple of conkers (can never resist those!), and a branch heavily populated by a number of lichens. The air on Colonsay is so clean that lichens flourish here!

the running wave

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