Gardening finished at 1pm, visitors arrived from 2pm greeted by a dizzly afternoon. The tea and cakes were therefore welcome - many thanks to Lucy and all the bakers.
The alpine bed
The spring garden
The front lawn with magnolia stellata
The flowering crab apple with the container garden
Primulas and fritillaries - alpine bed.
Rosi the cat needing affection
Amelanchier just in blossom
Magnolia stellata, still in flower after four weeks.
The bog garden with bullrushes, behind a yellow flowering-current (ribes odoratum)
Closer up.
The ericacious bed - for lime hating plants such as pieris and camellias
another view
Summer house view. This will later be transformed when the peonies flower.
Daffodils in front of the house, especially Narcissus 'Bravoure' - tulips too.
The fish-less pond
The front lawn
Golden mock orange, philadelphus aureus, brightening a fence
Pictures of the new garden, created last summer by removing a huge leylandii hedge. The neighbours built the impressive wall. First, the view from the road.
View from the house, through a vibernum
Looking towards the road, this bed is planted with reds, yellows, oranges as well as the whites of daffodils (most of which have an orange centre). Clematis and honeysuckle are climbing the trunks, and mature shrubs like ceanothus and photinia already reach the top of the wall. The yellow flowers are ribes odoratus.
This bed moves from red to purples. The stump next to the wall was too big to remove so it is disguised and in time will be covered by senecio, vinca and golden and silver variegated hedging lonicera nitida. The terracing uses the trunks of the felled leylandii.
Now a variegated photinia, in a bed that needs attention
Finally, the double hellebores by the kitchen window, still flowering their heads off.