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It’s crocus folks…

…but not as you expect Jim! LOL… I’m guessing I’m not the only Blogger that plays on words for post titles. Plant lovers… this one’s for you! For everyone else, it’s Friday night… scroll past the photos and enjoy the video. Thanks OH, that’s just what I was thinking of!

Yep… all eyes at the moment are on signs of Spring… but let me take you back to a dusky September evening around 4.30pm. Let me take you back to the Early Flowering Border (see map REF 10) at Cambo. There were crocus… Autumn ones planted with Hosta. See how they gathered around a tree trunk…

For those who crave flowers during early February, there were…

Okay, for those outside the UK I often post quite late in the evening. Well, usually around midnight and therefore many of my fellow UK bloggers don’t get to see my postings on the day.

I’ll cut to the chase. I’m not going to chat on tonight so this will actually get published before midnight. Also, for those who love naturalistic perennial plantings I’ll let you enjoy them and invite you to tell me your favs and why.

In all honesty, I could ramble on and on through every single photo about exactly what I absolutely love about these plantings. In short, I love shape, colour, foliage, flower and texture. Movement, punctuation marks, flow they are all there.

This is really taking great restraint… really it is! It’s Friday night… enjoy the picture show 🙂 Oh yes… if you click on photos they will enlarge.

For me, selecting and cropping these photos tonight just took my breath away once more. I absolutely love these plantings. Now, I have posted on Cambo before and tonight I intended this posting to be the tie up one. Oh… but I’ve just got too many photos I can’t bear not to include 😮

Okay, I’m going to deem this my Cambo weekend and tomorrow and Sunday I will post more photos with a tie up later on Sunday evening. Yep… if you’ve a cold, damp or dull weekend ahead please join me with a step back to September.

LOL… for the plant lovers and non gardeners alike the video below is the link to my post title. Yep… it has a ‘StarTrek’ theme completely unrelated to the photos I’ve posted. The line “It’s life Jim but not as you know it” simply just came into my head when I started to write this. This happens with me sometimes, goodness knows where these ideas come from 🙂

Did that not just make you smile… I do hope so! Enjoy your weekend 😀

All photos of an early flowering border above were taken by me on a visit to Cambo during September 2009.

17 thoughts on “It’s crocus folks…

  1. Absolutely gorgeous plantings, and the delicate colour of those crocuses is just beautiful! I very hopeful and uplifting post, Shirl. 🙂

  2. Shirl, You have S-P-A-C-E for your plantings and plantings that fill your space! Wonderful combinations of grasses and flowers… thank you so much for the tour!

  3. Hi Shirl, what a lovely place to visit and a very nice reminder of better days, wonderfully luxurious plantings! I could almost see the butterflies flitting from flower to flower and hear the drone of the bees 🙂

    I also enjoyed your previous post, I too buy black sunflower seeds especially for them after reading some time ago of their habit of storing them. I do wonder if they store the black ones in preference because they stay fresh longer.

    I tend to buy lots of different seed mixes and other goodies and then make up my own mix in a large container. Well! The other day I mistook a bag of niger seed for the black sunflower seeds and poured the niger (which I normally only put in a special niger seed feeder) in with the rest of the mix!! I suspect I will have some (unwanted) thistle type weeds this year around the garden!

    Enjoy your weekend too Shirl 🙂

  4. I love your garden visits. We had 9 or 10 inches of snow overnight, with much more to the south (I'm in western New Jersey USA) and these beautiful images remind me this will pass. I believe I've heard (read) Noel Kingsbury waxing eloquent about the plantings at Cambo.

  5. Hi Shirl,

    Lovely photos, if only my garden was as beautiful – it would help if I had a clue about garden design.. Who'd have thought a designer unable to design gardens??? Hmmmmmm

    Lol, I may get there one day… Honest!

    I'll be visiting Pensthorp this year… Purely to see the Millennium Garden, I am *so* excited. To see Piet's work…. Eeeeeeeeek!!!

  6. Quite stunning – my favorite style of planting too… good to be able to dream of those warm balmy summer days… infact was out in the garden today doing a bit of tidying up – amazing what is coming up – signs even of the day lillies making an appearance… rather worried about v. cold weather forecast for this coming week 🙁 hope you're having a good weekend Miranda x

  7. Hi Shady, LOL… I’ll need it too! I’ve just posted again on a few more plantings in the cut flower area and I’ve still a new American prairie to cover too 😮 There really were so many areas of wonderful plant combos… fantastic to see 😀

    Oh Shady… hold on to your garden hat… the tour hasn’t started yet 😉

  8. Hi Jan, I have to say I really cannot recommend this garden enough. I’ve so many photos of luxurious plantings from there and yes they did have butterflies fluttering around.

    Apologies here, if you are trying to keep up with me over the weekend as I’ve a few more postings planned if I can complete them ;-D

    Now, there’s an interesting thing. I never thought of the black seeds staying fresh longer. Oh my… I can just imagine your face when the thistle seeds danced over the rest of your seed mix! Yep… I’d agree with you on the new seedlings this Spring.

    Thanks, wishing you a great weekend too 😀

  9. Hi again James, thank-you its always great to share these garden tours especially with people as far away as yourself 😀

    Sorry to hear about your heavy snowfall though. Funnily enough I was thinking of your garden when I’ve been sorting and selecting photos that I’d still like to post from this garden visit. I’m guessing you might find the new American Prairie ones of interest too 😀

    Yes, Noel did visit this garden during snowdrop time last year and during the Autumn too. I can so see how he could enjoy chatting about this very special place 😀

  10. Hi there Liz, glad you liked them. This really was/is a very special garden. Ah garden design… is that not just movable feast of plants that you can rearrange as you fancy 😀

    Hmmmmmm… from an ex-designer I’m wondering now what kind of designer you are? I'm guessing you would have guessed I would 😉

    Oh… we all get there one day 😉

    Eeeeeek…. Oh you will so enjoy your visit to Pensthorpe. Birds, dragonflies, butterflies… oh and the plants too. I’m guessing you’ve a large memory on your camera cards… you’ll need it!

    Ah… Piet’s garden… guessing you saw the video of my visit in July 2008. I’ve absolutely no doubt whatsoever that you will enjoy more than one day there… actually I think you can get a two day ticket 😀

  11. Hi there Anna, glad you caught this. I thought you might enjoy it. Oh… you’ve got a post for Saturday and a couple for Sunday to come 😀

    When you come up to Scotland, in your travels, you really must visit this garden. It’s just 15 mins from St Andrews 😀

  12. Hi there Miranda, glad you caught this too. I had a feeling you might enjoy it also 😀

    Don’t’ know about the dreaming, my garden tidy up is more like a bit of a nightmare! Good to hear you got on well with yours. I see you’ve had a siskin visiting too… wonderful. We had a group pass through today too 🙂

    Wow… day lilies already! Yes, I can see how the cold would worry you. My penstemons, rosemary and sage have been a few of my cold weather casualties. Can’t decide when I should prune them hard back as we could get further cold snaps in February and even into March. What do you think… should I leave them for just now?

    Hope it doesn’t get too cold with you next week. On the positive you might get more birds visiting. Thanks the weekend had been good… especially getting some time to sort through a batch of photos 😀

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