Garden at the beginning of June 2017

The garden is beginning to look summery as all the bulb foliage has died down.

Looking across the patio to the lawn  with the herbs in the foreground 

Both of the apple trees have plenty of fruit forming despite some low temperatures when the blossom was  there.

Escallonia ‘Apple blossom’ bought on a holiday a few years ago and covered in flowers despite a lot of pruning earlier this year!

We spent the bank holiday Monday last week at the garden centre buying container plants, which I then planted up that afternoon. LO was meant to be helping but had an epic three hour nap instead!

Some of the containers in situ. Just have to remember to keep them watered but luckily LO is a keen plant waterer so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Salvia flowers- a present for LO’s Christening last year.

This rose is always covered in flowers each week too. I like the contrast between the flowers and the purple Physocarpus behind.

The blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes are covered in fruit and the rhubarb is getting huge.

Garden at the beginning of March 2017

Wow, so much has started growing in the garden in the last month, and I desperately need to get out there to do some gardening!

The lawn is still mossy and rather squelchy under foot.

There are crocuses and daffodils everywhere, looking lovely, bright and cheerful. After a cold winter the beginning of March has been warmer than normal so there are plenty of signs of Spring around.

The only herbs I’ve got left are this pot of chives, which has just started sprouted again. I did have herbs planted in the raised bed at the back of the garden, but we had to lose that section when we had the building work done last year. I never got round to doing anything about replacing them last year as LO was still so small and took up lots (!) of time. This year I’m planning to grow the herbs we use most often (rosemary, thyme, basil, mint) in pots on the patio, where LO will be able to see and smell them easily (and probably also pull them up!). 

The Camellia buds are waiting to burst open. Any day now. 

More signs of new growth. This is the first sign of the Dicentra appearing. Within weeks it’ll be big and covered with beautiful heart-shaped flowers. It has self-sown some seedlings nearby too, which you can see towards the edge of the photo.

I love these Hellebores. I grew them from seed taken from one given to us by our neighbour. The original had much paler flowers but these have turned out to be deep pink. Our garden is quite sunny but this area in the front garden, tucked in behind the wall, is shadier and seems to be better for growing woodland type plants. 

The containers I planted up in the Autumn with some help from LO. Tiny daffodils with some winter-flowering pansies. Quick, simple but effective! I need to cut back the Japanese anemome stems from last year to the left of the picture.

Think that’s all for this month. Have your Spring flowers started to appear too?