Spring Gardening

Despite the frosty starts and sharp winds during the past week, I have spent every moment I can in the garden. Once the frost has cleared there has been real warmth in the sun drawing me outside once again.

These miniature daffodils that were only in bud last week are now fully out with all the early spring sunshine we've had.

It's so satisfying clearing away the winter mess and getting things looking neat and ship shape again, and although I still have much to do I feel I've made a good start. 

Thank you for all your comments on my last couple of posts, its good to be back! But I am sad to find that many of the original blogs I followed from when I first started blogging, over 5 years ago, have now come to an end. At the same time though there are many of my favourite bloggers still going strong and it is great to catch up with them!

The crocuses are finally coming out fully now that I've cleared away some of the dead oak leaves.

This week I tidied more borders and got the rest of the rhubarb in the raised bed, cut back more dead stuff and cleared away yet more dead leaves..... shaped straggly evergreen perennials and pulled out weeds.........pruned and tied in a climbing rose over the new arch put in last year....and made inroads into clearing the patio. It doesn't sound much but the difference it has made visually, together with  my aching back, proves testament to my labours.

tidier patio!

muscari in full bloom

A quick trip to the garden centre at the weekend with husband in a rare, and unnaturally generous mood ( he's usually dead mean at the garden centre!) meant that I came away with some beautiful hollyhock plants in scarlet, pink and primrose yellow, a snakeshead fritillary, a pretty creamy white hellebore with purple markings, some snowdrops, and more vegetable seeds.

New hellebore 'Conny'

I do have a few lone snakeshead fritillaries that come up each spring, but there seem to be less each year and so I'm hoping that planting a good clump like this will give a better display.

snakeshead fritillary

 raised beds ready for direct sowing

Apart from gardening. I repainted this wooden standard lamp in Annie Sloan 'Original' - it was painted in 'Provence' before, which looked gorgeous but when I moved the lamp from family room into sitting room it didn't look right. 

I've also got a prettily shaped table to paint this week if we have a wet day, bought at a local charity shop and just waiting to be transformed, and a vintage wooden fire screen with a beautiful floral tapestry.

I haven't picked up a hook all week but am hoping to move this crochet project forward as its not too far off being finished. It'll be a cushion as the squares are too tiny for me to have the patience to grow it into a blanket!

It won't be long 'til the blue bells are out! This photo is from last year, taken in a nearby wood. It is always full of them and the sight and scent is amazing.

Hope all is well out there in Blogland, have a good week my friends and thanks for visiting!

in the woods last summer