It felt like spring today at Coombe Wood

So much new growth . .

Pink flowers against the long curved wall

It amazes me how many different shaped structures are in the middle of a hellebore flower. I would like to take one apart and examine it even more closely but I wouldn't pick one. I'll have to wait until I see one on the ground - or maybe if someone has some growing in their garden they might let me have one. 

These berries are crinkling up even more. Those spiky thorns are really sharp.

The crocuses are opening and showing off their saffron centres

Leafy mulch has been put on a lot of the flower beds and fresh bark on paths

Tiny bright pink cyclamens

The new pink anthers on these little flowers are the same colour as the tiny cyclamens

Clumps of leaves - the promise of so many new flowers on the way.

These shaggy tufty flowers have developed quite a bit since my last visit a few days ago

The robin was singing away again on a magnolia branch

More bark on the paths between the prairie beds

 Snowdrop petals opening - bobbing in the breeze like delicate little ballerinas

Looking closer at the green markings on their underskirts

and from underneath. Either I didn't know they have stripes inside the flower - or I had forgotten

A closer look at the tiny creamy cup-like blossoms above a bench which unfortunately, like another bench nearby, has been covered in chalk letters - names and kisses. Anyone who sits there will be covered in chalky markings until the rain washes it all away.

 Little blue flowers

On a stem in front of an old Korean pine cone there seem to be quite a few baby cones developing.

The callicarpa berries are very shriveled now

Spiky seed heads

White bobbly blossom

New buds showing on a small rhododendron. The gardener has been working very hard pruning things back to give plants more space

Dark purple crocuses - those rippled saffron middles fascinate me

Pink Camelia. Further on there are white ones but they're discolouring at the edges now.

Furry buds with white petals bursting out

I was surprised to see an azalea flowering already

And there were bees buzzing among the pink hellebores

The base of this tiny white  flower is a delicate creamy pink

What a mixture of life and death here as last years old flowers become skeletons and fall onto the carpet of decaying leaves while new green shoots are appearing. I'm sure the shoots were purple to begin with last year - but this year they're green.

Tiny white flowers on dark pinky red stems

An abundance of buds

Among the grass next to the path near the yew arch a line of snowdrops is much more visible now that they're peeping above the height of the grass.

From the other side of the arch

The bright orange fish are very visible in the pond but the small dark ones aren't as easy to see. When looking closer at the photograph it's possible to see the little dark fishes red fin tips.

Thank you very much for joining me