Bright cold morning walk (Coombe Wood)

The frost had mostly melted when I got to Coombe Wood for a shorter than usual walk. 

The waterfall is working and the pond is looking clearer again. 

Little areas of frost remained on some of the plants that were still in the shade.

 Blue sky reflecting in the pond. 

Miniature daffodils. 

Sunlight on new shoots.

 Leaves lit up by the bright sun. 

 Seed pods. 

Primroses.

Miniature tulips - just leaves at the moment. 

 Sunlit leaves. 

 Crocuses. 

 Looking across the neat prairie beds. 

Tufty grasses swayed in a slight breeze. 

Scented corner - three different plants filling the air with their perfume. Tiny white flowers (not shown here), little pink flowers behind the seat

and mahonias. 

 Drifts of daffodils with crocuses beginning to peep through. 

Snowdrops lining the pathway near the yew arch.

Azaleas. 

Snowdrop crescent around a tree with an outer circle of crocuses coming up.

 The gardener was continuing to mulch the prarie beds between the neatly renewed bark paths.

Heather.

Cascades of creamy bells. 

Tiny buds. 

 Sparkling water drops on twigs. 

Showers of little bells, different from the earlier ones.

An abundance of buds. 

 Snowdrops against red acer stems. 

Big clumps of hellebores. 

 Magnolia buds in the sunshine. 

 Iris shoots. 

Another barrow of mulch heading across to the prairie beds.

More new shoots in the sunshine. 

A last look at the pond before leaving.

Thank you very much for joining me. 

Friday afternoon walk with a friend (Coombe Wood)

In my post about my walk on Monday afternoon I described the gunnera as just a mound with some dead stalks sticking out but this time I noticed some very small green shoots. Had they really emerged since Monday? Checking back to Monday's photos, the shoots are visible then too - I just hadn't noticed them.

 The daffodils by the gate have opened. 

It's always good to walk with a friend. I enjoy it when friends notice things I have missed - like these bright holly berries in the hedge around the pond.

Tiny little puffy inflorescences (is this the right word?) on the hedge a bit further round the pond.

Crocuses and little yellow narcissus "Rapture" (I think) with its slender trumpet and swept back outer petals.

I was telling my friend that these tiny buds will open into sapphire blue flowers but I began to wonder  I was mistaken and they were going to be pink because of the rosy blush of the buds

but my friend noticed some blue flowers beginning to open further down one of the stems.

There's a tree near the fence above the Cafe courtyard with tiny white flowers emerging. The leaves on this tree look quite shabby - brown in places and they have holes in them but the flowers are perfect.

Soft downy bud.

 The disintegrating golden rain tree pods show up well against the lovely blue sky.

The gardener has cut back the last remaining stems which surrounded the little tree and he has mulched most (or all) of the beds in the prairie area now.

A helicopter flew over.

 Hellebores in various colours - the purples looked pink with the sun shining through them. 

Lemon yellow

White and cream

Of course we thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the different varieties of snowdrops.

My friend lifted the head of this one so we could see the flamboyant centre.

More hellebores.  Look how neat the centre of this one is. . .

. . . and how wild the centre of this one is. They all hang their shy heads so most people don't even see this hidden beauty. 

A sunlit leaf reminded me of a delicate piece of amber glass.

 Crazy witch hazel flowers. 

I couldn't find the Earthstar mushrooms to show my friend but she spotted one of them. I couldn't find the others. The outer part has curled right back now and the central sphere is becoming wrinkled. It feels like a thin latex glove and I'm sure that if a tiny bit of pressure was applied now it wouldn't spring back into shape - though I didn't try it.

A carpet of beech nuts in the sunshine.

 Gorgeous markings on a miniature iris. 

Here we are - snowdrops again. 

Looking at the corner of the prairie beds - mulched beds and clearly delineated paths.

Another thing my friend noticed that I didn't - some small pinky lilac azaleas were open already.

The waterfall is working again. Hopefully that will help the water to clear.

Thank you very much for joining me.