The first seeds have sprouted already! This is the zinnia.

In previous years I have grown a few seeds for containers, so I thought I would grow the same ones again and plant them outside later in the year.

I have some petunias, basil, californian poppy, zinnia and lobelia.

I am going to grow some chilli plants from a kit I received at Christmas.

There were only four seeds, there was supposed to be five. It has to be kept very warm until the seeds germinate, so I have put it in the airing cupboard. Once the seeds germinate, then I will have to find a sunny windowsill for the plant!

Another new flower. Some kind of anemone, maybe a Blue anemone or a Balkan anemone

So the clematis down the side of the house must be an early flowering one as it has got buds along with its first leaves. Good job I didn't cut it back too much!

I really wanted to have some english bluebells. Even before I moved here, I bought a packet of 5 bulbs which I planted the day I first got the keys, before I actually moved in. I also planted 30 bulbs along with the tulips and muscari bulbs that I planted in early-mid January.

Until now I thought that none of them were going to come up, but today I was excited to see a new shoot pictured below. It looks distinctly different to the others. I believe that although both muscari and bluebells have a V-shaped leaf on the inside, the muscari leaf is rounded on the outside, but the bluebell leaf is also V-shaped on the outside too.

No doubt it will become a lot clearer later, and I hope I haven't written this too soon!

I planted many Muscari bulbs earlier in the year and many of them have sprouted, and more are still appearing.

However I know now that there were already patches of muscari already present in the garden. There was a large clump in the back border and single ones along the edges of the back and right borders. They had leaves even when I moved in and it was one of the things that I thought they could be, and now they are starting to flower.

So the ones I planted are somewhat unnecessary, however the existing ones look as if they are all going to be same shade of blue whereas the ones I bought are supposed to be several shades. We will see.

First picture is the single ones along the border. You can see the foreground flower that is just about to open, and another in the background. …

The shrub near the back door is beginning to flower with lovely yellow four petalled flowers growing directly off the old twigs. I am guessing that it is a Forsythia. From reading about them, I seems like it is a fast growing bush and so it is not in a very good location as there is not a lot of room for it. I already cut it back a bit as it was overhanging the path, now I know that it flowers in spring I wish I had waited until after the flowers had finished.