Well this is surprising, I'd never even heard of the Periwinkle (as a plant, rather than a sea snail) and now I have a flower that looks very much like a periwinkle flower. But it is not on the plant in the recent article Maybe Periwinkle? .

Anyway first here is the flower. It is quite small no more than a centimeter across. It is the only one on the plant and there are no obvious other buds either.

So this is another spreading plant with much smaller leaves that are variegated light green and white. It is by the side of the house at the bottom of the picture below.

It is also spreading by rooting wherever it touches the soil. This one looks easier to keep under control, but only because it is more accessible and not mixed up in any other plants. Since the photo was taken …

I bought some bags of bulbs cheap at the beginning of January and planted them. I've been waiting for some to show. As it turns out there were many bulbs already planted in places where I planted my own, which makes it difficult to tell what is what.

The ones I planted are English Bluebells, Muscari and Tulips. I also planted a single Allium.

There are now a few shoots that I am reasonable certain are from the batches I planted.

The first look like it might be a tulip, although it may be a bit early to tell.

This also looks like it could be one.

This is the Allium. Not a very good picture of it. I partially excavated it to check up on it as I had forgotten exactly where I planted it.

Both Muscariand Bluebells look a bit like this, I am going …

Some new activity to report.

Shoots of what I am thinking is a catmint. Certainly looks like a mint.

Probably aquilegia

This is growing from the plant that I believe is the Lady's Mantel.

Shoots growing on a climbing vine. Don't know what this is yet.

I've been trying to find out what the evergreen creeping plant was. This one here:

It looks like it is going to be a lot of trouble and so I've already removed a lot of it. I am sure it will grow back again though.

After doing a lot of searches an looking at a lot of pictures I've finally hit upon something that I think it might be.

So it seems to fit the description of Vinca Minor or the lesser periwinkle. From that article its features are:

• Trailing - yes
• Rooting along the stems - yes, as I was pulling it up it was clearly rooting where a stem hit the ground.
• Not climbing or twining - yes its not attached to the fence or wrapped around the branches of the nearby tree.
• Leaves evergreen - yes
• Leaves opposite - yes
• Leaves 2 to 4.5 cm - yes …

Here is the corkscrew hazel again. Unfortunately the picture doesn't do it justice, but this is followed by two close up pictures of the catkins and a bud.

It has catkins that don't always hang downwards. In pictures of this tree on the web, the catikins seem to be different. I am therefore a little doubtful on the identification. Will compare leaves and flowers when they appear.

Here is a new bud with an interesting red part emerging right at the end. It is fair to say that this is not typical and only a few have this red end. Perhaps more will later. Update: as I discovered later this is a hazel flower.

There are some daffodils now appearing beneath the Choysia bush. Well probably daffodils, they are much smaller than the main daffodil patch.

There is now much more sunlight getting to the garden. Early in the day it shines between a gap in the surrounding buildings onto the back fence and border, moving around to the right side fence. At midday, there is sun on a portion of half the lawn. By 2 o'clock the sun drops and only the right hand fence get the light.

There are a few things starting to grow.

Montbretias

Shoots starting to show.

Here is their bulbs or rather corms. There are a number growing on top of each other, so if you pull the top one out there are others beneath it waiting to take its place. They are therefore very difficult to get rid of, they pack the soil and prevent anything else growing. As I have quite a lot of patches of this I am going to start removing several patches.

Crocus

So I …

I decide to cut back one of the shrubs that is growing over the lawn. It is planted very near to the fence but grows forward away from it. The fence just behind is broken and maybe these things are related.

Cutting it back just reveals how thick and woody it is at the bottom. I sawed off many of the thicker branches and would do some more but I want to see how much it is going to grow back first.

This picture kind of shows the tangled mess of branches near the bottom, although it is worse than it looks here. I may end up removing the whole thing if it turns out to be not very interesting.

Daffodils

There are a lot more daffodils now showing. After cutting down the bush and clearing away some of montbretia they are much more visible.

Pheasant berry tree

I also …