It has been a glorious Spring, and also a very busy one, which is why there has, as ever, been very little time to spare to write since Christmas.

The highlights of Spring in my own garden so far have been – my Clematis armandii, which has gone completely berserk with flowers for the first time since it was planted about four years ago..

 

 

And the wonderful lime zest of Euphorbias in the early sunshine – they really positively glow…

 

My Akebia flowered for the first time, at last, after another long wait – the ‘Chocolate vine’ as it’s sometimes known –

And the Epimedium in my garden that I inherited has been glorious this year, flowering most prolifically –

My Clematis chirrosa and Clematis montana have been flowering together for the first time on my balcony –

And I’ve been pleased with my Tulipa ‘Spring Green’ which is my favourite..

along with Tulipa ‘Ballerina’, which smells rather surprisingly of tangerine.

The fern crosiers, as usual, are a delight at this time of year

As is also my parents’ wonderful Magnolia stellata,

It has been a very busy Spring with clients’ gardens too, with one Magnolia, one cherry tree and 6 step-over apple trees planted, as well as a new lawn seeded and several new whole-bed plantings completed.

A new client’s garden was rather neglected, and I have been working hard to bring it back to order.  Here it was on a gloomy first visit in January…

And now we have order and a lot of new plants, all flourishing, including many classic shrubs and perennials.

A new lawn has been seeded at another client’s garden, which looked like this when I arrived…

And now is coming along nicely after a new fence, new plantings and edging, along with the seeded lawn, just put down when this image was taken

And last but not least at another client’s old drainage pipes have been ‘repurposed’ to become deep planters, one as a ‘herb pie-chart’ with five herbs of each type, per seventh section of the circle, and the other with tall and wispy perennials such as Libertia and Agapanthus.

I’m looking forward to what the next few months are going to bring along in gardening challenges!

Happy gardening and Happy Easter!