In the garden

The azaleas are in full bloom now. Azaleas are the official flower of this city and you can see them all over the place, but these ones are in our back garden.

Last autumn we bought a couple of little broom plants, hoping they'll grow up and fill in a space that looks right into the neighbour's front door. Not much growth yet, but we do have some lovely flowers now...

A while ago H and I rigged up some bamboo poles supporting a net over the patio area. With luck these little morning glories will grow up the poles, spread across the net and provide some shade so we can actually sit out there on a sunny day.

Round by the front door the tanuki is keeping guard over some little bamboo shoots that have just started to, well, shoot.

Overall, everything is looking so green now (sadly, this includes weeds...). The lawn is greening up nicely and everything is covered in fresh new leaves (except The Stick). A couple of little plants that we put in last autumn don't seem to have survived the winter but, on the other hand, a rose we got from Tim is about to flower! In the vastly over-named Vegetable Patch, the na-no-hana/rape/canola has finished flowering and has all gone to seed, and we have a few new additions: 2 mini tomato plants, 2 more broccoli plants and 1 lone cucumber plant. Wouldn't want to get carried away now....