Horticulture: spring diary

This amelanchier was a recent gift from a friend. I've wanted one for years, as I loved the two that were in my grandmother's garden and remember playing with her cat underneath them in the springtime. Anyway, when I got it, all it had were tiny buds but over the past few weeks it's developed until it finally flowered this week. It's a mass of blossom.

I bought this little bowl as a gift for my partner, but really because I liked it. The birds (especially the robins, blackbirds and dunnocks) drink from and bathe in a wooden tub: we call it a pond but that's a bit of a joke. It's small and at the moment it's choked with plants, which is why they find it perfect to stand in. I thought they might use this, but they haven't so far.

These tulips have just come into flower: they're called 'Fusilier' and they're a stunning, glowing scarlet and multi-headed. I bought the bulbs last summer, put them in the garage and forgot about them. A few weeks ago we found they'd started to sprout, so I hastily planted them in fresh compost in an old plastic tub, and they flowered really quickly. I'm sure that's not the recommended method, but it worked. I did the same with some purply-black parrot tulips but they seem slower to get going.

Two days ago our hedgehog reappeared! This is great news as we weren't sure he/she would survive the winter. We'd never had one before that stayed in the garden, only ones that passed through. It loved cat food: it would appear promptly each night and look for the bowl, then stand in it and clear every scrap. One night I experimented with leftover pasta, sauce and cheese - the hedgehog loved that too. I'm sure this is the same hedgie, because it cleared the bowl on each of the last two nights. The cat isn't too keen on it, though.

She's very good about sharing her food with the birds: the funny thing is, the cat will eat the jelly and leave the meaty chunks, while birds do it the other way round. The blackbirds and robins are especially partial to cat food, and now turn up as soon as I feed her, waiting for her to finish so they can have their turn. She also (inadvertently) feeds the rooks and magpies. She'll bring mice and shrews home and then abandon them, dead, on the lawn, where they make a snack for the birds.