My Spring garden is lovely but it is the nature of every gardener to see the gaps, to want more rather than less and so when I sit and enjoy the flowers, I’m also thinking about what I want to buy for next year.

Anemone blanda blue lie low at the edge of the pink rose border but there are gaps that could be filled there, and maybe a row repeated down at the front of the white rose border would be lovely too.

The crocus planted in the front lawn were mowed by the gardener by mistake so made only a late and lacklustre showing. They could be supplemented with some whites and purples now that everyone knows where to find them.

One plant we don’t need more of is muscari or fritalaria which seem to be incredibly happy

They crocus have enjoyed the gravel garden this year but could maybe be joined with some early dwarf iris, planted in nice large clumps.

Whilst I love the darker blues and purples, these are quite hard to see down the garden from the house, but very easy from the windows onto the gravel roof.

I quite enjoy the contrast but wonder how dark I could go.

I am toying with the idea of making the shady garden a spring garden, since obviously the deciduous trees at least allow some light through and the overwhelming presence of geranium is muted.

Some white narcissus pre-date me in the garden and seem shade tolerant. They’re later than the bright yellows that I’ve planted but seem tough enough to cope with my neglect.

And that’s all before we even start to think about tulips.

Working on the basis that these recur somewhat, but never perfectly, then I’ll always be looking to top up each Autumn. Some types are definitely more resilient than others, notably the bog-standard reds and parrot purples.

For underneath the hedge, I’d like to plant more species tulips though given it’s origins (sunny greek islands) it would probably do better up in the gravel.

Though maybe what I should do is move one of the thugs from the shade garden down to the lower garden and plant out under the hedge.

And despite having far too many in the main garden, I’m still considering whether or not to add some fritalaria to the muscari in gravel. If one works so well surely the other should as well?

In amongst the main rose beds, I’m generally happy with the white-pink-purple theme but this year there seems to be a lack of pink. The white tulips have started life quite yellow which is a bit disconcerting but they do seem to be settling into a brighter white.

It’s possibly all to do with the timing of the flowers. Maybe the darker Queen of the Night were just late to arrive, along with the Shirley

The front bed with it’s indestructible red tulips, has benefitted from some yellow and orange companions, but could be made even better with darker shades of red.

Maybe I could bulk out the red even further to make the clash even more obvious.

Or even a few more orange bulbs dotted towards the lawn.

Though it seems to be outside of my preferred palette of colours, if we must have those red shades, then let’s make them bold bruise shaded clashes rather than apologetic whimpers.

And since they seem to have arrived a bit later but looked beautiful, how about a few more Tulip clusiana “Peppermintstick”

Got to love bold, if you can’t pull off elegant.