Through the Garden Gate--May 2022

The garden has really come to life in the last few weeks.  May is such a lovely month in the garden, where everything looks so fresh and green and ready to burst into flower.  The weather has been mixed, sunshine and showers and I think everyone is waiting for some warm sunny days now.

As the plants in the borders have filled out , I have less need to weed, although we do get mare's tail popping up here and there. We have been tackling one or two tidying up and reorganising projects this month in corners of the garden which can be bit troublesome. Down in the far corner of the woodland/wildlife bed, after a good weeding we  raised the soil into a mound put some more bark chippings down and arranged  some tree stumps around. We can't plant anything here because it is just rubble under the soil surface. I hope the wildlife are happy with it.

In the opposite corner where the bird feeding area is, we gave the paving stones a good clean, put some shrub tubs in place and arranged some of my gardenalia ( or junk!) around them.

On the patio I reorganised all the pots of sedums and succulents along with more gardenalia bits and bobs so that they are all in one place and I don't miss any when I'm watering.

That was a few days hard work, but meanwhile the flowers are continuing to open up and brighten our days. 

The Gertrude Jekyll rose is full of flowers and smells wonderful.

We had a lovely surprise when this Clematis appeared on the archway. I planted it a couple of years ago and forgot about it as it didn't flower. I've no idea now what its name is.

The honeysuckle 'Scentsation' is a mass of flowers and we should be getting some lovely scent from it when we sit out in the garden in the evening.

I bought some Geum 'Totally Tangerine' to brighten up the raised bed. It's a plant which I have been wanting for some time now. It does provide a good splash of colour and looks good with the Alliums.

The lupins are starting to flower now.  They are lovely cottage garden plants.

I've also been busy planting up patio pots. These are just two of them.

Now that we've got a lot of our garden jobs done I'm looking forward to some warm weather when we can sit back and enjoy the garden.

I am linking this blog post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post

Through the Garden Gate-- April 2022

 

April is a lovely month in the garden, it's a time of hope as we see so much more new growth and flowers starting to appear. The days are longer so that means more time to spend in the garden or on the allotment.

It's been a very dry April this year and I've had to keep up with watering all the patio pots.  The tulip tubs are all going over now.  There has been a couple of good displays but a lot of the other pots haven't been too good this year, so I think I will be starting again with new ones for next year.

April is also blossom time. The Amelanchier is the first to flower in our garden.  We went away for a few days over Easter to stay with our daughter Sarah, who lives in Bedfordshire and came back to see the Crab Apple and Ceonothus both in flower, that was lovely!  On the grass verges around where we live are pink blossom trees too. 

I'm so glad we managed to get the borders weeded and mulched in February and March, they are looking so well for it.  The plants have started to fill out and with some in flower there's more colour about. They do give nice surprises as I wander around and spot one which has just come into flower--it's like meeting up with old friends again.  At the moment I am enjoying a blue Camassia and pink Aquilegia by the shed, a white Dicentra near the front gate and the lovely acid yellow of the Euphorbias at the back of the Silver Birch tree.

The front garden lawn was looking a mess around the edges where last year's flowers had flopped over, so Richard neatened it up. It's given a bit more soil space for the plants to spread into and I'm trying to resist planting more to fill up some of the space as this will mean we'll have the same problem next year with messy edges!

In the back garden the raised beds in the lower seating area needed a good tidy up--everything was getting overgrown so it's been time to split and divide some of the bigger plants and moving others which were in the wrong place.  There's always something to change in the garden--that's what gardeners do.  I seem to have a least one new project every year.

Sometimes it's good to have a break from the garden. On some of the nice weather days we went to visit garden centres and last weekend we visited a nearby NGS garden.

What are you doing in your garden at the moment?

I am linking this blog post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post.