Shades of blue

At this time of year there seems to be so much beautiful blue around. As you may have guessed, purply-blue is a colour I love. Our front door and gate are painted this colour, as are the bathroom, our dresser and the back of the house! The garden is also full of blue. These grape hyacinths, or muscari, have frilly white edges to their 'bells', and I love the way the stem turns from green to blue as it reaches the flowers.

It's so good to be able to look closely at tiny forget-me-not flowers and see, not only their yellow centres, but streaks of pink in their petals.

Here is a rosemary flower in close-up. The flowers are surprisingly complicated. Because our garden is quite small, space is limited, so I bought a variety called 'Mrs Jessop's Upright' in the hope that it wouldn't sprawl across its neighbours. It's still attempting to, though!

This a gorgeous early-flowering clematis. It grows up the side of our shed (I forgot - that's blue too), and is a delight in April. The colour is truly heavenly.

Below is a little primrose that I bought last year. It's called 'Zebra Blue', and you can see why. Look at those amazing stripes!

Of course, I mustn't forget bluebells. These are the most common garden ones, Spanish bluebells. They aren't as delicate as their wild relatives, but the colour is still intense.

And here is something altogether more purple ... violets.They self- seed around my garden, and are so sweet, but often easy to miss. Wordsworth described them in his 'Lucy' poems:

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'A violet by a mossy stone

Half-hidden from the eye!'

And now a bit more blue - that fabulous spring sky.