Tulips for Easter

This time of year is always difficult blog-wise, there is so much to talk about and look at and report back but there is also SO MUCH TO DO!!!

So the posts stack up and moments get missed. Sadly the work stacks up too, the garden is so dry that the planting out of various things as been postponed because it's easier to make sure they get sufficiently watered if they are all together.

But then a Bank Holiday weekend comes along and the heavens open endlessly. The garden is watered thoroughly and I can't get out into it to do anything so the blog posts can be bought up to date-ish.

The Easter weekend was pretty glorious down here in Cornwall - a really cold wind, but largely clear and sunny with the ridiculously blue skies that we are known for.

As if to celebrate all my Tulips appeared en-masse!

I didn't plant any new ones for this year so these are all 2, 3 and 4 years old.

My glorious, jagged Black Parrot Tulips which really are almost black at their centre...

my ridiculous Florence inspired Flaming Parrot Tulips (do not focus on the colour scheme - what was I thinking!)...

...they are just so joyous,

and at four or five years old, fairly unstoppable. I just wish they weren't surrounded by purple things!

and my streaky, twisty Virichic Tulips which hurl themselves in all directions and come out almost completely green and get pinker by the day, and twirl themselves in ever tighter contortions.

Having mentioned the blue skies I have failed to show any evidence of it so I will end on a picture of the tree that is stunning at the moment..

Koelreuteria Paniculata (thanks Mum) also known as the Golden Rain Tree or the Pride of India. 

At this time of year its pinky gold new leaves and dark twigs are stunning against the blue sky, so light and feathery, ethereal even! The fact that it is next to the Magnolia grandiflora ferruginea with its solid, dark, shiny, leaves creates an amazing contrast. 

Sadly the Koelreuteria isn't a particularly healthy tree. We inherited it and over the years it had been squashed by the Magnolia and a huge Myrtle that we removed a while ago. It is tall and spindly and, as you can see rather twiggy, and I'm unsure what to do to help the situation. Most of the advice says it needs minimal pruning to retain the shape. That ship has sadly sailed so I will just have to keep my fingers crossed, it's unlikely to survive the sort of radical prune needed to re-instate its 'small but elegant, branching form'.

Any advice on a way ahead do please message me - personal experience trumps the world wide web every day!