LITTLE ARTY JOURNEYS: Even more colour at Coombe Wood

The tulips are at their best at the moment. I took a ridiculous amount of photos this morning and I've had trouble choosing which ones to include (there are still a lot of them!)

I lingered for a long time around these flower beds enjoying all the different colours and shapes in each bed.

I particularly like the different colour mixtures and heights of the tulips. The height difference is particularly obvious in the ones near the back where the dark red tulips are taller than the orange tulips.

Red white and blue plus a splash or two of pink.

These remind me of cherries and cream - (the pinky ones are where the cherries and the cream have mixed together).

Fern unrolling its tight curls.

Red and white with the cherries and cream in the background.

Moving round - red and white in the foreground with orange and dark red in the background.

Raspberry ripple ice cream?

A closer look at the orange and dark red - underplanted with white orange and some short dark red flowers like pom poms

A strip of pink single and lilac double tulips.

In the top bed - yellow, orange and red.

Red and pink

Back to the red and orange tulips - the different heights don't show here because the photo was taken from above.

Pink pom-pom like underplanting.

More contrasting shapes and heights.

I dragged myself away from the tulips and walked around the pond, up the path next to the stream - pausing many times along the way.

Tiny white flowers.

White "bleeding hearts"

No idea what this is but it has amazingly intricate middles.

Similar colours but bell-shaped instead of flat.

Buds of emerging tiny blue flowers.

Surely I didn't walk past this without noticing last time I came - have they really suddenly come out since then?

Further on - the bluebells show up beautifully next to the magenta flowers.

As I turned the corner I was amazed at the change in the trees ahead. There had been some pink on the tree on the left but it was now completely covered in blossom and the little one on the right had a lot of tiny red buds last time but hardly any blossom,. Now its covered in pastel pink and white, with many more red buds still to open. We'll come back to these in a moment.

The buds on the Judas tree are much more evident.

A closer look at the little tree with pastel pink and white blossom.

I must go back and see if I can get some closer photos of the lichen on this little tree - there's such a variety of shades of green peeping through on the branches.

The mistletoe is more visible again with all that pink surrounding it.

Now a closer look at that big pink tree.

Each cluster of blossom looks like an individual bouquet.

Tiny red azalea - flowers wide open now.

Magnolia.

Tiny acer leaves - soft as feathers.

Korean pine cones forming (about an inch tall).

Here's the little shrub which has buds like little white bubbles - flowers opening up now.

White rhododendron.

Looking at the Pieris

Looking up - the colourful leaves look like a halo.

Rhododendron.

Walnut leaves unfurling. (Wonderful structure!)

The yellow azaleas beginning to open - these will be highly scented when they're open.

In the distance (roughly centrally in this photo) I noticed the enormous rhododendron blooms - only the higher ones are open at the moment.

Pink buds opeing into clusters of big white trumpets.

Futher along - more ice cream colours.

A lady was walking with a small child - the child called these little green berries grapes. The do look like tiny grapes. I think these smell like onions - the lady thought they were more like garlic.