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.