I planted 25 of these Tulip saxatilis, but I've been wondering where they all are and if they are going to appear. A few days ago I saw this one under the Sanguisorba leaves nearly ready to flower and now it is out.

There are three unidentified Tulips at the back of the garden that may also be these, but they are much, much smaller at the moment. There are also various single leaves without a flower which may be them too.

First flower of this Melittis melissophyllum 'Royal Velvet Distinction' that I bought in November when it didn't have any leaves above ground.

Lovely to see a bluebell out. I only have a few, as I've dug up all the ones that didn't display most of the characteristics of Hyacinthoides non-scripta.

This is the Epimedium that I bought in summer last year, it was flowering at the time I think. The flowers are much larger than on the Epimedium × warleyense which flowered earlier.

You can compare with last year.

Weather

The average temperature was 8.8C with a minimum of -2.9C and maximum of 19.6C, so the minimum was again lower than all of the winter months. There were 3 frost days when the air temperature dropped below zero.

It rained on 4 days, but with a total of just 5mm of rain, so a very dry month indeed. The only real rain was on the last two days of the month, it is possible that the other two recorded days were just dew/frost melting.

Flowering

It was definitely the month for tulips there are many posts earlier in the month on the individual tulips so I won't repeat them here.

I planted Tulipa 'Ballerina'which appeared to be quite yellow on the packet but I see in internet photos is more orange. I think these are them, they could also be from …

I made a mini rockery for this Lewisia cotyledon Elise in the driest part of the garden as I was concerned that the wet conditions would not suit it.

It had a single flower stalk flowering all over the winter! Now it is a mass of flowers and there are more on the way.

It is the most striking and gorgeous plant at the moment.

I have two of the silvery leaved kind and a patch 'Hadsden cream' that was already there.

I've been interested in growing these from seed since I learned that the new plants are often quite similar to the parents, so I thought there might be some interesting variations.

For some reason there are a number of seedlings this year in the gravel and here is one that still has its seedling leaves. It is slightly interesting in that it has a small portion of the leaf with the silvery finish to it.

There were some from last year, plus I planted some more for this year, mainly in the front garden.

They are quite a late flowering variety.