Over the last two or three weeks I’ve worked hard in the garden, trying to catch up from earlier in the year when it was very wet and cold. I finally feel I’ve got somewhere as I have finished tidying up the back garden – well apart from the compost heap, which will wait a little longer!

Everything is starting to green up, you can see from this photo of the summerhouse in the morning sunshine, the trees behind are peppered with bright green buds, there’s still a good display of daffs too, these are the later flowering ones which grow a bit taller…

My magnolia stellata is still looking gorgeous and smelling wonderful too. The patio area gets the morning sun, so this is where I sit for my morning coffee when it’s warm. The birds will still often visit the feeders even when we’re close, especially the robin and the bluetits.

Last week I promised a photo of my palest pink camelia, well it’s produced another flower – it’s only a little bush so I haven’t got many, but isn’t it beautiful…

I finally got round to sorting out the climbing rose on my obelisk. The long branches have to be tied round so it covers the frame, rather than just growing upwards, the idea is that the branches spiral round – that’s the theory anyway!

The Amber & Amethyst garden, AKA the gravel garden! is where the sun goes in the afternoon and evening, it used to be all flower beds with no where to sit, but I realised that was the best spot for the afternoon cup of tea, so I dug up the flower beds and built a new garden last year. It’s coming on nicely…

Down the drive I have lots of shrubs, at the bottom there’s an amelanchier just coming into blossom, it’s very pretty and delicate. The leaves start off a bronze sort of colour, before greening up for the summer and then turning orange in the autumn.

The front garden is my next big task, there’s a lot of pruning needs doing and ALOT of weeding. We have a big mares tail problem in the front – nextdoor was so fed of of his he hard surfaced the whole lot! I have another tactic this year, recommended by a friend who got rid of it in her garden. I’m going to paint it with neat weedkiller! I’m hoping having this time off work will help me be more organised with this particular battle!

My plan is to weed this lot, dig out what roots I can before I cover it with membrane and plant shrub roses through it. Anything that comes through the membrane will be zapped! I need to get a move on as my children each bought me a rose for mothers day so I need to get them planted. As you can see have still have a lot to do…

Keep safe everyone.