Tulips from Backwardland

Scotland is a backward land for I have been watching the spring delights emerging elsewhere in these here British Isles often weeks ahead of any action in my own garden.  Today that changed when I came home to find my first Tulip open - a cultivar of a species tulip.

Tulipa kaufmanniana 'Show winner'

I confess it gave my heart a little thrill when I saw it.  However, I am no less excited by the flowering of the hellebores even if some of them are a few weeks behind everyone else:

I think, though, my favourite spot in the garden is here as each time I look something new is happening and today I am impressed by the gently spreading blue flowers of Pulmonaria angustifolia 'Munstead Blue'.  This came here as a young plant that had been raised at Alnwick in Northumberland and is now in its second year.  In the foreground you can just make out a winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) beginning to open its yellow flower.  So while this may be a backward land we always seem to get there in the end - wherever there is.