Early April in the garden

 The rufous sided towhee was seen on one of the cedars in my back garden at the beginning of April.  Since then a pair of these birds have built a nest under a heather bush in my front garden near the entry way.  I tried not to disturb them while they were nesting.  I was working on a renovation of the front rockery area which was fairly close to the nest.  They seemed to get used to me being out there and began to tolerate me.  As it only takes about a month from laying the eggs to the baby birds fledging, the nest is now empty.  I did not get pictures of the female crawling into the nest, nor did I take pictures.  About 3 days ago I took a quick peek and saw some movement of what appeared to be feathers of a bird.  Since then the nest has been empty.  I am finished the cleaning up of the digging over of the new rockery area, and cleaning up of the stone paths in the front garden.  Since the birds seem to be gone for now, I can trim the boxwood hedges that go right past the nest. Here is an interesting page about birding:  https://www.wild-bird-watching.com/Towhee.html

 This female downey woodpecker as on the front tree later in April.  It is very well camouflaged.  I have not seen the more colorful male recently.  I believe they, too are nesting somewhere in the "woods".

 April 10th photo of the hyacinth and the crocuses in the pink pot.  Very nice fragrance.  At the time the whole garden was full of hyacinth fragrance.  I had moved the pink pots arrangement to the deck last year.  I think I will move them to the new little front rockery area now, as the deck is getting rather crowed. 

 this is looking over the deck railing to the pond.  The marsh marigold is in bloom.  The water fall is still working.  About 10 days ago the pump stopped working.  It is only a year old and is under a 3 year warranty.  I bought it from the water gardening department of Cannor nursery.  I will wait till the
Spring traffic slows down before taking it to them to try and get it replaced or repair by the company.  I will take my best negotiator, Patrick, with me to help.  :)

 This is a special little plant I got at a show and sale of the Vancouver Island Rock and Alpine Club a couple of years ago.  I took photos of it to a meeting last Fall when they were asking for members photos of plants.  I did get a name for it, as being a primula auricola.  I will have a perfect spot for it in the new little rockery area. 

This is a double primula ... might be a 'wanda'.  These lovely, long lasting, evergreen plants are growing around the back garden, in the woodland, around the pond  and in what I am now calling the Moss/Japanese garden room.  I think I may be migrating some of these primulas to around the pink pot arrangement in the front.  I was digging blue bells out this new renovation, so I might leave it for a while yet to see if I missed any of the bluebells, or  montebretias.

My latest passion is the saxifragias.   I have two bigger pieces of tufa rock that I have put into  the white pots 2 years ago.  This pot has 4 saxifragias said to be from Rex Murfitts collection.  They are growing like crazy.  I will divide them and pot up the divisions to grow them on for the new rockery renovation. I will be getting some more tufa rock from a member of the VIRAGS, so the new little saxifrages should be happy in the new location.

 the other tufa rock where I dug little holes into it and planted this saxifragia.  It does like the tufa!  I have another little hole where I have stuffed a piece of the unnamed saxifragia that I have from Rex Murfitt's home sale, in one of the Butchart cement pots.  That little piece of the saxifragia in the tufa hole is doing well also.  I will some day get Pat to drill some more holes in these tufa rocks for me.  And I need to clean the moss off of them also.

The violas in a pink pot.  Lovely, easy care plants but they spread everywhere too.  Much like the  violets that I wish I had never introduced to my garden.  They are easier to pull out than the violets, I think.  So they might continue in their pink pot, out in the new rockery.