One morning last week I woke up early and looking out of a bedroom window saw this amazing sky with a funnel cloud formation. The sun is low at this time of the year and partly obscured by trees as I look across the valley, but on rare occasions we sense its blazing light at sunrise before the curtains are drawn back. The weather has been better this week. In fact, today it's slightly milder. Mr P and I have been out-and-about as our thoughts turn to garden planning for this year. We wanted to look at stone garden ornaments and bird feeders and add to our collection of seeds and plants.
There are two garden centres along this stretch of road near where we live. It takes us along the valley, through farmland, over moorland to the village of High Bradfield.
As well as the buildings that contain garden accessories and a café there are terraces full of plants in pots according to variety. There are ornamental trees and flowering plants growing in the ground in creative displays which makes it a pleasant place to walk around although yesterday it was quite windy and chilly so we didn't linger too long. I had wanted to get a hellebore plant, but there were so many varieties I changed my mind until I could do some research on when to plant them and look after them. Instead we bought flower seeds, parsnip seeds and a blue polyanthus as well as a bird feeder that can hold a block of fat that contains seeds. I've hung it up in a new place on an unused washing line post together with another bird feeder that holds niger seeds in the hope that more small garden birds will come and feed from them.
my new polyanthus (primula)
