April garden visiting

Its the school holidays here and I have been taking advantage of the weather to get out and about with my camera. This is the garden at Englefield earlier this week. I posted some photographs last year in May when the azaleas made a stunning display but this week, a month earlier in the growing season, there were plenty of daffodils

and delicate blossom.

The real stars this time though were the magnolias, large bushes (trees?) reaching for the skies.

The flowers look so perfect emerging from the bare branches before the leaves.

I don't know much about magnolias and there are many different types, I like this smaller white flowered variety which I think is Magnolia stellata.

A couple of early flowering azaleas were also enjoying the spring sunshine.

I'll finish with a couple more photographs of magnolias

and the clear blue sky.