Spring Time

The main graden is full of colour with the tulips and camassia. The flowering cherries seem to get heavier with blossom each year. I was looking at a picture of them when I first planting them and they have grown considerably in the 3 years.

The azalea's are vibrant colours, I'm not sure what a lot of them are as I just dotted them in, many of them are unlabled so I wasn't sure, I suppose if anything clashes horredously I'll have to dig them up and move them. I planted lots of double flowering daffodils in these beds, and species type so hopefully they will multiply in years to come.

The gravel area is nearly finished, I've just got to spread the last pile of really well rotted horse manure around the borders.

I think this photo was taken a couple of weeks ago as the tulips are not visible. The beginning of the summerhouse, I hope to have this finished by our open day, well before hopefully so the climbers etc can get growing.

The colour combination of these yellow tulips and the euphorbia is wonderful. Just thought I'd add it as its a lovely reminder of why we spend hours grovelling around in the dirt planting bulbs etc...

A Host of Golden Daffodils

At last the daffodils are all out in glorious bloom, all that hard work months ago in the cold pays off a million times (well perhaps not a million). But hopefully these will be enjoyed for many many years in the future.

New beginnings in the back.

Here are the hundreds of hellebore seedlings that I have managed to transplant from the garden. I have some more saved for NGS days. It takes 3 years from seed to flowering at least so I have no idea what the flowers will look like. Hopefully some of the will be really nice.

This is the new area I have just dug over in the back garden. The children are not happy as they play football near this area. Hopefully the path will recover and green up without too much intervention. I'm hoping to plant shrubs and spring bulbs and perhaps some autumn colour in these beds.

The daffodils are just starting to flower, we planted about 6 big sacks over the winter (when they had been reduced greatly). It took quite a long time and I don't think any children will ever help plant them again. Another new bed in progress on the left, again shrubs and spring and autumn colour.

A few more beds for the back garden

I have at last had 5 minutes to start thinking about some more beds in the back garden. I have very many (as have so many) plants waiting for homes, because I tend to pick up all the reduced plants at the end of the seasons I have a large pile of plants ready to go in, which whilst I'm waiting is annoying but when I have made a bed its brilliant because I can usually fill it with what I have already.

Yellow Book

I was very pleased to see that we will be listed in the ngs yellow book this year, and are now featured on their website. Unfortunately as they have a link to this site it's about time we pulled our collective fingers out and did a few updates. As Elaine will have her hands full getting the garden ready I will most probably get the job of doing the updates, so don't be surprised if a few of the more technical aspects of gardening are glossed over. Still it's better than digging!

I have made a start on the back garden.

I have at last made a start on the back garden. These are all my bargain shrubs underplanted with daffodils. I will probably plant some geraniums for ground cover over the summer, and hopefully some asters for the autumn. There is little point having too much of the herbaceous stuff as the children will just kick their footballs into the beds. This will be a spring and autumn garden.

A very long hot summer.

One day I hope to make this into the next part of the woodland bed. Its covered with nettles, although a load of foxgloves did self seed here earlier in the spring. I've been cutting the grass in the shape of the border, hopefully I might get some time in the winter to dig it out.

These beds are still going strong, I wish in a way we could have a hard frost and I could have a good clear out. This year I actually left the big clean up untill March/April, a bit too late really, but it didn't take long as most of it had rotted and it was just a couple of days going around picking up dead stuff.

This Ricinus is an absolute stunning plant, highly poisionous if the seeds are eaten although they were high enough that the children couldn't reach them.

Again this has grown beyond our wildest expectations this year, obviously the manure and years of sheeps droppings has worked to feed the garden well, hopefully it will continue for a while longer.