The daffodils are coming

Cleared the leaves from the new daffodil bed this morning, probably for the last time this year, as next year's daffodils are now coming through.

One of the two clumps of cyclamen which are getting established visible at the back. Seeded naturally from elsewhere in the garden.

Several seedlings of carex pendula visible, taking a while to get going.

Ants' nest bottom left is still there, behind the stalks, but there has not been a lot of action this year. I never have seen many ants, but there has, in the past, been plenty of evidence of their activity in the morning, with little piles of soil from their tunnels scattered about. Not so much this year.

All in all, I would have expected more grass in this bed, laid down seven years ago now and not disturbed since, beyond cutting the grass once or twice a year. As can be seen from the posts at reference 1, there was more grass in the past, but we now seem to have more moss than grass, although there is grass after the bulbs, early summer. Nor can I say that the daffodils are doing particularly well either; still there and still spreading, but a lot of them are coming up blind.

Whereas the meadow bed I had on the southern fence, on the other side of the garden, used to have rather better grass, despite being in more or less continuous shade. A mistake, as it has turned out, to have dug it over to give FIL a bit of garden, which he never took to, despite having been a keen gardener for all of his near fifty years at Exminster.

Seven of the box seedlings planted behind the palings survived out of the fourteen or so planted. The deal being that they had to manage without much attention from me. Hopefully they will get going before the palings finally give out.

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=new+daffodil+bed.