Garden at the beginning of August 2016

Still getting caught up, but at least it is still August!

Lawn at the beginning of th month, with a baby for scale. LO really enjoys playing in the garden, although it's a bit more difficult now she's crawling as it's hard to get on with anything before she has to be removed from somewhere she's not meant to be!

Apples ripening on the standard tree. There are several on it this year, and they seem to be ripening slightly earlier than usual.

Lots of apples on the espalier tree. This one is further behind the standard, and produced a lot of apples, which I was a bit late thinning so they are all still rather small and green looking. I have hung CDs up already in the hope of protecting the crop from the squirrels this year...

Looking over the raised bed by the Golden rod and Physocarpus. These have grown really tall this year with all the wet weather earlier in the year.

A new plant! This is Salvia 'Joy', which was a Christening present for LO. I had fun deciding where to plant it for her. There was also a cardboard container shaped like a hand grenade which was a "wildflower bom", which we're going to have fun throwing into the border later in the year!

And the first lot of raspberries are ripe. Since then we've had another whole sieve full, as well as all the ones LO ate in the garden.

My patio containers. I'm pleased with them this year, especially as there's little I have really done to maintain them.

I held an open garden event and coffee morning two weeks ago, which was a little stressfull to organise with a baby around, but went really well. It was fun to show off the garden to the thirty people who came, and I raised £170 for charity!

Garden at the beginning of July 2016

OK, so July ended up being rather busy and, despite my best intentions, I didn't get round to blogging at all. Oops. I haven't yet taken the August pictures, but here are the July ones to get it started.

One lawn, with LO playing.

My newly arranged pots on the patio. I am really pleased with how these are looking now.

I cheated and bought ready-planted hanging baskets, having worked out that buying two hanging baskets (as we didn't already own any) plus the plants to go in them would be more expensive and a bit of a hassle with limited time available. The idea is then to re-use the baskets in future years. The water butt is getting a lot of use now the weather has turned warm. We've actually managed to completely empty it once already, even though I got the biggest one we could fit in.

The sedums are beginning to flower, and are really popular with the bees.

 I had to thin the apples on the espaliered tree as so many had grown, as you can see below. Last year we lost all of them to squirrels anyway...

So pretty, we've had this Anthemis tinctoria E.C. Buxton for about five years, and I usually put a plant support in for the flowers, but didn't get round to it this year. It looks so pretty mingled with the sedum below! Think I might do the same thing next year.

The raspberries are growing well, and have now almost got ripe berries on them.

And the rhubarb went completely crazy in the warm weather with all the rain earlier on!

Phew, July done. Now I really must get round to getting the August pictures taken...

Garden at the beginning of April 2015

This one seems to have come round quickly! I usually work on Wednesdays, but we get an extra days off for Easter where I work so I am at home ready to take pictures instead.

I'm not sure why the lawn is looking a particularly psychedelic shade of green. It is a bit on the yellow side though. 

Yay, lots of rhubarb appearing, so it will soon be time for rhubarb crumble etc. The gooseberry has nearly all its leaves now and the blackcurrant bush isn't far behind.

Lots and lots of cowslips now flowering around the foot of the apple tree.

First signs of apple blossom appearing!

The aubrieta is beginning to flower too.

I love the colour of these hyacinths, and I'm pleased with how they've worked in these pots with the cyclamen. I'm tempted to do this one again next year.

The hydrangeas are covered in leaves and I've pruned the dead flower heads off them now.

I wasn't sure what this one was called (or how it got into the garden, as I didn't plant it!)  but apparently it's a Leucojum vernum, or spring snowflake. Never heard of it before!

And the white voilet is covered in flowers.

Have you got lots of spring flowers in your garden?

Garden at the beginning of December 2014

Last one of the year! It's about 8°C today, so not ridiculously cold for the time of year. The leaves are off most of the trees, apart from the two apple trees actually in the garden, which have just begun to drop leaves. The garden is also probably looking a bit lighter as the neighbour's walnut tree was removed last month (it had died and had honey fungus).

Pretty leaf colours on the Hydrangea Twist n' Shout

The cyclamen I planted up in containers last month are just starting to flower.

The colours of the remains of the Spiraea flowers are really pretty (although they're prettier when the sun is shining on them!).

The Cotoneaster we bought last year has really pretty leaves now, and some red berries, although I think some have already been eaten by the birds!

The Alstroemeria is still flowering (it's tucked up in the cold frame for the winter).

And the Convolvulus has started flowering again!

Think that's all for now! Happy December gardening everyone. I think we've nearly done for the year, we had a big clear up over the weekend, and I got the soft fruit and rhubarb mulched.

Garden at the beginning of October 2014

The garden's definitely got an Autumnal feel to it now. Yesterday was the last day of warm weather, and it's distinctly colder today, and we've had some foggy mornings too.

I'd sown another pot of lettuce seeds, although I'm not sure how much more we'll get from it this year. I'm pleased with how the salad containers worked though, the three bowls were more than enough to keep us in salad throughout the summer, and I'll be able to start it off earlier this year too.

The Nemesia I planted in the border is still going strong, although this new cold weather will probably be the end of it.

The hydrangea is developing really pretty leaves as the temperature drops.

This is a mixture of fuchsia, and an Abelia Grandiflora I planted last year. Really impressed with how much it's grown over the last year.

Another fuchsia, absolutely covered in flowers. Last year it was so mild these kept flowering up until Christmas.

Another flush of flowers on the foxglove.

The Chelsea chopped sedums have now all flowered and are really popular with the insects!

And two apples from one of our apple trees. We had another two which the OH ate whilst I was away, so these two were mine. There were two more, but we think the squirrels got there first...

Garden at the beginning of April 2014

I really wish now that I'd taken garden at the beginning of the month pictures last year, as that was the year of the never-ending winter. I've enjoyed seeing friends' this year and last year pictures on Facebook for the contrast this week! I know from my garden record book that last year's temperatures were well below 10°C colder than they are now.

Meanwhile, this year there is now a lot of colour in the garden as more and more plants start flowering. The birds are all nesting and eating up the hordes of tiny insects which presumably weren't killed off by the mild winter.

The daffodils are virtually over now, but most of the tulips are out, plus all the Aubrieta.

I love the Dicentra flowers, and it seems to be doing particularly well this year - must be the wet weather!

Close up of some more Aubrieta. Three years ago I bought a four pack of different varieties from the garden centre, so we now have clumps in a mixture of purples.

And the first sighting of some apple blossom!

Garden at the beginning of December 2012

It's looking a lot colder now in the garden and I've done quite a lot of chopping things back as the perennials have died down for the winter. Unlike last year the weather's been much colder with several frosts.

The walnut tree in next year's garden didn't have any nuts on it at all this year (presumably because of the bizarre weather) so the squirrels have been running around looking for things to eat. They dug up and ate my newly planted tulip bulbs so I had to construct this delightful looking garden feature to protect the area near the primroses.

 Constructing raised beds has been one of my jobs now that I'm working part-time and have more time available. I'm also rather proud of the fact that both are filled with home-made compost. The further bed has the remains of the comfrey plants on it to carry on rotting down over the winter. The nearer bed has garlic planted in it (with mini fruit cage to protect from the birds/squirrels/all the things that keep coming into the garden and trying to eat EVERYTHING IN SIGHT).

The apple trees still have a few leaves attached, but it won't be long now before they're totally bare.

Ice on the bird bath.

I love the colours of the leaves in this hydrangea - it's called Hydrangea Twist n' Shout and was one of the first plants I bought for the garden the first year we were here. It was a new variety that year, and I think is well worth growing as the stems are a pretty red colour too. I grow it alongside various heucheras, with purple and green leaves.

And I've sorted out the cold frame for winter - it was so nice to have time to do this properly! I have two fuchsias over-wintering under cover (one tender one has come into the house), cuttings of rosemary, thyme, sage and lavender, plus some sempervivums, four pots of broad bean seedlings just starting out and some penstemon plug plants I'm growing on to plant out next year. I've even gone all Gardeners' World and labelled things!

That's pretty much it for the garden this year. I have a few jobs to do - such as pruning the apple trees and I want to order a HUGE pile of compost to mulch at some point, but that can wait until 2013.