I was looking out of the upstairs window yesterday and I thought, actually, from a distance the garden looks pretty good, it’s only close up that I think ooh err!! We seem to have more birds visiting now too, so we must be doing something right, we’ve had bluetits in the nest box, wrens nesting nearby but I haven’t quite sussed out where. I think there’s also a willow warbler nesting in one of the shrubs, he’s hard to identify though as he’s flitting about and lets face it, they’re basically very little brown birds!!  Blackbirds and robins are nesting in the beech hedge…it’s pretty tuneful in our garden, especially at dawn and dusk 🙂

A couple of years ago my mother ordered me and my sister some irises from France for our birthdays, some didn’t survive, but the one I planted near the conservatory thrived. I decided it was because it was being nicely cooked during the summer and the gravel of the damp-roof system meant it was well drained. Any bearded irises in the garden that weren’t happy got moved here and now they’re all happy and flowering. The two dark ones were from Thornton Hall gardens near Darlington, we’re hoping for another visit there in the next couple of weeks.

We’ve a few alliums flowering at the moment, it looks quite effective in front of the lime green of the spirea. We did have alliums around the patio too but they went a bit mad, when I was digging the area over winter I found hundreds of bulbs and when they came up they were drowning everything else out, so they had to go elsewhere.

Hubert the heron is disappearing behind the foliage now,  solomons seal, hostas, aquilegias and brunnera are all growing nicely. I think the pond area is one of the best bits of the garden at the moment.

I’m about half way through clearing my AA garden, this is the bit in front of the chickens on the left. It’s a big job as it was densely planted in raised beds, unfortunately it is also densely planted with marestail and bindweed. I’m trying to save certain plants whilst digging out as much weed root as I can. I’m wanting to make the garden lower maintenance so my plan is for a circular gravel area surrounded by  wide, raised beds. I’ll still keep my Amber & Amethyst colour scheme as it does work well. I’m planning to have a nice seating area up there as we can catch the evening sun up there.

It’s been a pretty dry spring here in Yorkshire, so our clay soil is like cracked concrete, I’m hoping for some nice gentle rain (preferably at night time!!) over the next few weeks to make my gardening life a bit easier!