Our lovely spring weather continues here in Yorkshire – I’ve even had to start watering plants, especially those which only went in this month!

My OH commented yesterday what a colour corner we have next to the conservatory, I think the daffodils are late because I was late planting them, so they’ve joined in with the blue brunnera and the pink camellia behind.

Opposite is my pots border – the soil here was awful, so I flattened it, put down some membrane and pebbles, and covered it with pots, I have a bit of a blue theme running through the pots too which adds a nice splash of colour in the winter. I also find having all the pots together seems to create a bit of a microclimate – I rarely water these, even though they’re in pots. Having said that I gave them a good drenching yesterday, we’ve not had rain for weeks! The acer is over 25 years old – I bought it when my son was born.

Plants seem to be sprouting up daily, these erythroniums are beautiful with their nodding pale yellow flowers, I think they’re called pagoda. The tall stems behind have appeared this week, it’s Solomons Seal, it’s getting a bit rampant really, but it’s not that easy to dig up! All the hostas are starting to unfurl their leaves too so hopefully soon the pond area will look verdant and lush!

I’ve been working on the front garden again this week, it’s a huge task, we’ve got three tiers, two narrow ones and one deep one. I’m pretty much clearing the top one at the moment, just leaving my favourite shrubs in. The marestail and bindweed has gone rampant here, so I’m trying to remove as much weed roots as I can before I cover it in membrane and the then weedkiller anything that comes through! I did this on the lower tier and it certainly helped. My problem now is that the top tier is probably 8-10 foot wide and 25 feet across at least, a big area to clear, so I’m tackling it bit by bit…

I’ve a purple magnolia in this area, it flowers quite well, but I have to say I’ve always been a bit disappointed with the blooms, they’re a bit of a muddy purple, I think maybe magnolias are one shrub when it’s best to stick to the original!

On one of the lower tiers I’ve an eschordia, The Bride, it’s in flower at the moment and it’s beautiful…

I took a photo from upstairs the other morning and the camera just caught a shaft of light coming down, it looked beautiful and not at all what I say through the viewfinder!

Hopefully next week they’ll be more progree on the front garden 🙂