The weather this weekend has been typical of April, we had a couple of lovely sunny days over the weekend, today was dry and warmish first thing, then we had sudden hailstorm for ten minutes, and now the sun is shining!! British weather at it’s best!! Luckily I managed to time my gardening well…

I’ve spent several hours in the garden this weekend, weeding and working over the soil in between the plants. My friend who comes to help me in the garden introduced me to a wonderful little hand-tool, a hand cultivator, it’s like a mini rake with three prongs so you can work the soil between the plants. It’s been a game-changer for me, it makes the garden look tended! I’ve mainly been tidying up the patio area, I’ve moved a couple of plants, checked my planters to see what has survived the winter. I’ve a couple of plants and shrubs in the garden too which don’t look too sparkling, I’ll give them a couple more weeks to see if they’re going to show any signs of life.

I love this time of year when everything starts to appear and shoots up so quickly. The lime green climber at the side of the arbour is an early flowering clematis, it’s just about to flower, it has pretty little blue bell flowers. This one is pruned after flowering. The big shrub to the right of the photo is a white broom, it’s just about to flower too. I planted it a few years ago in completely the wrong place as it’s just going to get too big there. Once it’s flowering I’m planning to prune it and then move it to the side of the house where we have quite a dry and sunny area, I’m hoping it will be happy there.

By the side of the patio we have a few pasque flowers, pulsatilla vulgaris to give them their full name. As you can see these have gorgeous magenta flowers and they’ve flowered in perfect time for Easter this year, living up to their name. I love the seed heads of these too, they’re lovely silvery fluffy things.

This is the Amber and Amethyst garden, it’s filling up nicely. The pulmonaria are just starting to flower with their little heads of blue and purple flowers. The bronze sprouts trying to escape from the frame is a peony, I think I need to move the frame across a bit. The taller leafy one is blue camassia, the flower heads are just starting to appear so hopefully this one should flower in a couple of weeks or so. The shorter bushy bulbs are either hyacinth or bluebell, I can’t remember which – pretty blue flowers!

The violets have started flowering too, I love these, they self seed all over the place but I try not to pull them up if I can help it.

The trees on the back lane are starting to green up too, the two smaller green ones on the left are hawthorn, always one of the first to break into leaf. We’ve cut down some of the sycamores over the last few weeks which were getting too big so we’re hoping the garden will benefit from the extra light. We try to keep the sycamores down so the smaller native trees such as hawthorn, hazel and silver birch can flourish. The tall tree in the middle is an ash, it’s a beautiful tree so I’m desperately hoping it doesn’t succumb to the ash die-back, or even worse, the council come and take out all the ash trees regardless on the back lane as it’s already been seen further down.

The magnolia is past it’s best but is still brightening up the garden with it’s papery white blooms. The birds are getting quite territorial about our feeders I think as we’re now down to one pair of each, finches especially. We had a bit of excitement a couple of weeks ago when a strange bird visited the feeders, creamy white, a finch, having posted a photo on the Yorkshire birders page I discovered she’s a leucystic bullfinch. Leucism is a genetic disorder resulting in a partial loss of pigmentation, it’s not albinism as then they have red eyes too. It’s not a great photo as it’s through the conservatory window and I didn’t dare move! Her partner is the handsome chap on the right, they mate for life apparently. She’s not easy to see as she unfortunately blends in well with the magnolia behind! She looks like a snow bunting. I’ve named her snowy! She came regularly for a few days so I’m hoping once they stop being so territorial that she’ll be back.

I’ve been planting up some seed trays this morning so we’ll see if I have any success! Giant Chinese lanterns, purple poppies and giant sunflowers!