A Coombe Wood walk

It was quite breezy this morning and the wind was rippling the pond surface.

 A green hellebore

 Very long "catkins"

 Vivid iris 

 Snowdrop circle around a tree

 Further disintegration of the Korean pine cones

I'm fascinated by how different pine cones can be. These little ones form on the end of branches.

As the pain killers are working well I decided to venture up the hills right into the woods

 and came across several "shelters"

Back down again I found a couple more clumps of hellebores that I hadn't noticed before. The middles amaze me - they are so flamboyant.

I can't resist the snowdrops. They're opening up more each time I visit and it is easier to tell the difference between the varieties now.

There's a very useful snowdrop identification PDF here by M.J Crawley if you are interested. I think this must be a clump of double flowers.

whereas these are single flowers

The gardener is having problems with the deer eating the pansies. I've never seen deer in Coombe Wood myself but I have seen several nearby in the grounds of Royal Russel School and one on Shirley Hills (also called Addiscombe Hills) quite a long time ago. 

I wonder if these nibbled pansies will flower. 

Just photos today, no other art. 

There's quite a lot brewing but nothing new has been done yet.

Thank you very much for joining me.