tulips, muscari and auriculas

the auriculas are starting to bloom, this is my favourite one

a forget-me-not has self-seeded in one of the auricula pots

a few days later

I love Professor Rontgen tulips and although I try different tulips, I come back to this one.

I got these as an impulse purchase at Sainsbury's, labelled "Pink Parrot", they don't look very parrot-y to me but they bloomed and look good.

I love the purple glaucous colour of the Hermitage tulips before they open

the Hermitage tulips and growing with the muscari, below with a bee

the bees are liking the muscari, one of the few things I have in bloom at the moment

a few days later, all the Hermitage tulips in bloom and the bright orange replacing the glaucous purple of the buds

I buy sea holly regularly because I love them but so do the slugs and snails so they don't last.These eryngiums Big Blue looked fab at the garden centre. I couldn't decide between the  well-developed buds almost blooming and the huge one so bought both.

I have 2 Magical Blue Lagoon sea hollies left from last year, this is one. Some nepeta around it, attracting the cat there.

this is the other, with a scabious self-seeding in the pot

I moved some pots around to see what's growing and Rocky has come to a pot of nepeta. Lone anemone above. Had many more last year. They don't seem to last, not in my garden anyway.

giant scabious I grew from seed last year, seems to be doing well, I removed the green alkanet from the pot, also need to remove a winter purslane and beccabunga which have self-seeded

monkshood, I had two but only 1 seems to have survived

marsh mallow I grew from seed a few years ago, I see a hogweed has self-seeded and purple toadflax?

close-up of those purple toadflax ? from above, will have to see for sure what they are when they bloom

The pot these fringecups were in broke last year so they were sitting on top of the soil awaiting repotting which I finally got around to this week. They aren't looking great but they're still alive. I hope they'll recover enough to bloom again one day, maybe not till next year?

Rocky

Scarecrow and Victor