Our Garden - April 2011

Our Garden - April 2011

April is a lovely time in the garden and, in our case, especially the front garden. I'll start with some photos from the back garden as that's where I spend most of my gardening time!

fish

The fish were enjoying the spring sunshine - they like to bathe under the fountain - guess the copper heats the water?

The pond is not on a slope! I must have had the camera at a strange angle.

primula

The Kerria (right) is the best it's been for many years - must have liked the very cold winter we had.

helebore

This is the only helebore we have left - the snow and very cold winter killed the rest off.

daffs

I didn't realise how many different kinds of daffodils / narcissi we had until I wandered round with a camera in my hand.

daffs

The shrub on the right was in a pot when we first arrived here but is now thriving and looking prettier every year.

By the second week of April the tulips in the back garden were starting to put on a good show. The one on the right is one of many Shirley tulips that Wendy-Jo and Colin bought for us.

front garden tulip

Moving on to the front garden, we had to have a small sorbus tree taken out this winter as it was being eaten alive by some bug or other. Poor thing - it didn't look at all well.

front daffs

There are a few daffodils in the front garden. There were lots of daffs in the bed next to the house but they'd died back before I wandered round with the camera.

The spiraea (candlelight and firelight) and the tulips are the stars of the show in April. The tulips flower year after year which is quite amazing because I don't do anything with them.

It's now the 20th April and the garden's changed completely with lots of bushes and trees leafing up and the tulips at the front dying back. The back garden now takes over as the place to be!

acer bed

The red acer just gets bigger every year. All 3 acers are now in full leaf and looking wonderful.

apple blossom

The apple tree seems to have recovered from its poor state when we moved in with loads of blossom on it this year - a hard prune now and then seems to do no real harm!

cotinus

The cotinus always looks lovely in the evening with the sun behind it. Although I think it's called a smoke bush because of the flowers (later in May), it could easily be called a fire bush when it's all lit up like this.

The "silver bed" has the eucalyptus growing pretty silvery flowers at the end of every twig and underneath it the bluebells are in full swing.

The Red Robins are very red this year. These are the first things I see when I look out of my bedroom window on a morning and gaze from left to right to make sure all is in order!

The tulip beds in the back garden are now putting on a lovely show. The Shirley tulips are from Wendy-Jo and Colin. I bought a few Queen of the Night to go with them and left some of the original tulips in place so the colours all mix up together.

The tulip below is not in these beds - there are a small group of them on the way down to the pond.

Moving on to the last weekend in the month, the Red Robins are looking very red and everything is leafing up nicely.

The acers are in full leaf but, as you can see on the left, a lot of the tulips have already died back. Everything is so very early this year - probably because it's been so warm. It's also been really dry. Wonder if if's saving the chilly, wet weather for what would be our Summer?

The irises are, once again, taking over the pond and the water lillies are just beginning to cover the surface with their leaves.

The viburnum above is doing really well this year and the weigela is full of pretty pink flowers as is the judas tree.

allium

The bluebells are starting to fade but the alilum are starting to come out in all their glory.

The first iris is in flower and the ceanothus is coming out. We lost our big ceanothus on the right hand side of the garden in the snow but this one (in the gravel bed) survived and is coming along nicely.

Wandering down the side into the front garden, the clematis is flowering well and spreading across most of the fence between us and next door.

The yellow roses at the front are really lovely - they are full of flowers and they smell beautiful. Difficult to imagine what the roses at the front looked like in December with their 3 foot icicles hanging from them (as per photo on the right). Doesn't seem to have done any permanent damage!

It's wonderful how much things can change in just one month but as a reminder where we started the photo on the left was taken at the beginning of the month and the photo on the right is from the 30th April - hard to believe that it's the same bed!

A final look across the patio at the back garden and that's it for this month's walk around. Hope you enjoyed the spring colours.