Pulmonaria

I did another long session in the front garden today; I think I've probably tidied about 40% of it so far (I daren't begin to calculate how small a percentage of the total garden this represents - it would be too alarming). I'm very tired now, but happily not doing the Two Soups Walk, so my back must be toughening up pretty quickly this year.

Quite a lot of herbaceous perennials are budding now, but this pulmonaria is one of the few things actually in flower. I don't know the variety, because it was planted by the previous owner of the house; it was originally in the shade of a large white hebe, but that died leaving the pulmonaria much more exposed than it likes to be, and it became rather tired and sad. Over the past couple of summers I've dug out several clumps and transplanted them to shadier areas at the side and back of the house - at this time of year the sun is still too low to trouble the remainder of the original patch, but as you can see the brightness is threatening it, so I must set to and move it soon.

I used the smallest, 13mm extension tube on my 50mm prime to get this shot. I like the fact that you can clearly see the transition from pink buds to blue flowers, and also the extreme hairiness of the stems and leaves. I'm not sure that it's really vivid enough to qualify for Technicolour Tuesday, but I'm going to tag it anyway!

I'll take a look at some of your journals now, but then I'm off to bed with a hot-water bottle: our 2-year-old and supposedly highly reliable boiler broke this afternoon and the house is horribly cold already....