Return of spring!

I had the pleasure of visiting the Painswick Rococo Gardens this week to look at the stunning annual display of Snowdrops which has been open to the public in several different forms for over a century, at first this was one afternoon every spring when it was opened to the local people of Painswick but has now become a spectacle which opens throughout the growing season and attracts people from far and wide. Painswick itself is a quintessential Cotswolds town with its beautiful honey buildings and the church is stunning with many Yew Trees growing within the church yard; the legend suggests that there are just 99 Yew Trees and states that if the 100th tree was ever to be planted then the devil would destroy it! Although this was then proven wrong when in a process to mark the millennium every church in Gloucestershire was given a Yew Tree to plant, that hundredth tree is still going strong (this though is slightly exaggerated as in actual fact there were already over one hundred Yew Trees in the churchyard)!

Not just Snowdrops were out! Plenty of spring flowers are now beginning to show their heads.

There were some beautiful large varieties of Snowdrops in the gardens.

There were also more traditionally shaped flowers.

Some of my first Primroses of the year!

The view out into the Painswick Valley with some of the vast carpet of Snowdrops in front!