The Saturday rain curse struck again, but I took some pictures this morning just before it started for another Six on Saturday.

1 Tulip "Orange brilliant"

My first, and so far only tulip of the year. Very striking and clearly visible from the house.

2 Geum 'Totally tangerine'

This has been putting out flower buds since January, but none have actually opened until now.

3 Primrose

This hasn't grown as well as some of the others, but it now seems more settled and is rather pretty.

4 Mini Daffodils

These small daffodils came with the garden. I don't know what kind they are, but they look like "Rip van Winkle". To be honest I prefer the regular daffodil flower.

5 Brunnera 'Looking glass'

This is my new Brunnera, which has silvery leaves. The first leaf, while still small is now big enough to see what it is going …

I didn't get an early picture of these last year, so here are the Polygonatum (Solomon's seal) initial shoots.

The Ligularia przewalskii has suddenly sprung into life. It must be loving all the rain we had over Easter.

March was an interesting month, cold periods with snow cover, a few warm days and to round off the month continuous rain on the last day. In most cases growth is delayed compared to last year. So here is the March round up of everything that has been happening in the garden.

Comparison to last year

Everything is all so very different to last year here are the main differences.

• This time, last year, all of the daffodils in the main patch were out. This year there is one out and that is an aberration.

• The Pieris was already started to put out the new red-shoot growth, this year there is no sign of this yet.

• The Anemone blanda had flowered already, but this year the buds are developing still.

• The Forsythia is just starting to bud, last year it had already flowered by the middle of the month.

• The …

Today started off wet but the clouds cleared and it became sunnier the longer the day went on. Very warm when the sun was out too.

After a break here are six more things that can be seen in the garden this Saturday.

Daffodil

I have my first Daffodil flower and to me that means that spring has finally arrived. This is much later than last year, where the first one was out on the 13th March or perhaps a day or two earlier.

It remains the only one that is out and it is going to be days before any more join it in the main clump. This is also very different than last year when there were several out within days of each other.

This daffodil was an early starter and its flower bud was clearly visible in the middle of January. It is also the same one …

The first Daffodil in the garden opened today. This is a full 10 days later than last year (perhaps more - I was away for a few days last year).

Also this particular Daffodil is completely ahead of all the rest in its clump, there are no others anywhere near ready to open.

Over the weekend we had a little bit of snow, just a thin covering. It wasn't that cold although it was very breezy for several days in a row. It was all preceded by very persistent rain, so everything was already soaked. The plant pots froze but I'm not sure about the ground - perhaps just for a day.

I was not expecting this cold spell therefore to cause any problems as this was a much shorter and seemingly less severe episode than previously.

In fact there appears to be a fair amount of new damage I've noticed and it would be interesting to know why. It is possible that the thick layer of snow previously was more protecting or the wind had an effect

My Physostegia has remained green throughout the winter, but all of a sudden it is looking rather wilted.

This Aquilegiahas curled damaged edges around …

The catkins on the corkscrew hazel have been rapidly growing longer and are now just about fully open - if open is the right word to use here when they drop and go fluffy.

Last year catkin open day for the same tree fell on 13th March when I noticed them. They may have been open for a couple of days beforehand - I was away for a few days if I recall correctly.

The picture today (9th March) may be a little less open than when I first saw them last year.

So catkin opening is pretty much the same time as last year, perhaps a day or so earlier.