Six on Saturday: Light Bulb Moments

The snowdrops are over and the witch hazels finished flowering more than a month ago but hellebores, with their long season of interest, continue to make their presence felt. There are a few flashes of purple from lingering crocuses and the streamside grass is still ablaze with yellow ‘Tête-à-tête’, and now the later spring bulbs are beginning to appear – fritillaries are so pretty, with their nodding purple snakes’ heads, even more so when growing in a clump, aren’t they?

Anemone blanda are now appearing too, opening their petals on the warmer and brighter days, with white ones pushing up amongst the long-flowering arabis, and the even more striking blue ones making a small but welcome impact in the blue & white borders:

I usually, but not always, plant potted hyacinths out in the garden once flowering has finished, where they reliably reappear each year, not always with much impact; not so H ‘Woodstock’, a wonderfully deep purple variety which for some reason I did not grow this year. Sadly this seems to be the only one in the garden, so perhaps not as reliable as other varieties:

In the same border as Woodstock is a small clump of species tulip T turkestanica, discreetly popping up each year but often quickly weather-beaten, as they are this year – but at least it’s the first tulip…

…not for long though, as it was a skip and a jump moment when moments later I spied this tulip in a pot outside the sitooterie…whoohoo! Can’t tell you offhand what it is, as my tulip purchases in recent years are whatever pink or purple varieties I can buy in reasonable numbers for a reasonable price, but I could probably check it out if I had nothing else to do… Anyway, it concludes my six bulbs on Saturday, my contribution to Jim’s popular