Last week the weather was beautiful here in Yorkshire, sunny, warm, dry, perfect gardening weather! As I’m self isolating in the house and garden anyway, it was an ideal time to get caught up in the garden. Whilst I’m not completely caught up, I’ve done an awful lot of weeding and pruning, working my way methodically round the garden. Even now it’s a lot cooler I’m managing to get a couple of hours each day out there.

The daffodils are still cheering up the garden, the bigger ones are in flower now, though there’s still a few clumps in bud by the back hedge which will hopefully flower in the next couple of weeks.

My magnolia stellata is just starting to flower too, it’s probably my favourite tree in the garden, especially in the spring when it is covered with papery, white blossoms. They do discolour if we have a frost, but there’s usually plenty more flowers to replace them.

I’ve finished weeding and tidying the patio area, we just need to get the chairs out of storage so we can sit here for our morning coffee, this is the best spot for the morning sun…

I’ve pruned and weeded most of the amber and amethyst garden, I say most as I just have the bit behind the obelisk to do, and I need to straighten the obelisk and tie the rose down! This is where we sit for the afternoon sun! OK so this is where we sat and shared a bottle of wine on Thursday afternoon! All the usual rules of after 5pm and not on a school night have gone out of the window with the lockdown! It was very pleasant!

As you can see I’ve also weeded and tidied the autumn garden in the foreground. I only planted this last year and I’ve been pleased with it as there’s always something of interest.

I’ve even managed to prune the big rose hedge – some of those thorns are evil!! and weeded underneath too. I’m waiting for my OH to dismantle the right hand side of the compost heap so I can tackle the nettles in there. We’ve got a hot composter now so we will gradually be emptying this one – more planting room!

There’s all sorts of perennials starting to appear, this is when the danger time is, is it a weed or a plant!! I have to make a concerted effort to remember where my geums are as I have a big problem with the weed version of it!! I’m sure over the years I’ve dug up several bought geums! The weeds also hide in amongst geraniums – they’re sneaky things!

This is a lupin just starting to appear, I think it’s a nice deep purple one. The leaves look very pretty as they unfurl, especially with the drop of water in the centre…

This is the area I’ve been working on today, so it’s already looking better!! I’ve got as far as the sedum on the right, so that’s had it’s old stems cut back. It really needs dividing but it will wait until the autumn. I’ve still the big area by the tall fence to tackle and the corner behind the summerhouse which I call my wild garden!

Then I can start the front garden! There’s no peace for the wicked 🙂