Here are a few photos that I took – I could have stayed all day, but we had to get back to the conference!

[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7478,7456,7475,7474,7455,7457,7458,7461,7462,7460,7463,7464,7467,7466,7468,7469,7470,7473,7472,7471″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1429562379077{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]The alpine house was definitely one of my favourite parts of the garden! I’d love to go back and explore more if I’m ever in Leicester again. If you’d like to plan a visit, you can find out more information on their website. Hopefully it will be on a beautiful sunny day like this![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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I also painted underneath the pebble dash and the door and window frames, so it’s looking super smart for the first time in a long time! You can just about see that the front has been dug over, and Tom worked really hard doing that. He’s planted some wildflower seed so hopefully we’ll have a mini meadow in our front garden this summer!

I thought I’d share a few photos I took in the garden – I know I do this every year but I just love the flowers so much![/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7313,7314,7326,7315,7325,7324,7321,7322,7320,7316,7323,7317,7318,7319″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1428958028357{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]We didn’t get out in the garden much at all this year, so really hoping that this year will be different…fingers crossed! Hope you had a super weekend too! :-)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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We took our snazzy camera along, so Tom had that (I had my glasses on and I can’t use it when I do – how ridiculous is that?!) and I had my phone camera. The spring flowers are just coming up so the snowdrops and crocuses are out (although the crocuses were closed up to protect themselves from the wind). There are so many kinds of snowdrops there, and Christine (who owns the gardens with her husband, Mike) was busy doing an inventory of all the different kinds. Such a windy day to be doing it, so cups of tea were frequently required to help! We had some lunch first to gear up to face the winds. Here are a selection of photos that Tom took:[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7154,7155,7152,7153,7151,7156,7157,7158,7159,7161,7162,7164,7165,7166,7149,7167″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1426091973134{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]I really love being able to see the bare bones of a garden at the beginning of spring, with the pops of colour here and there. Here are some of my photos:[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7169,7170,7171,7172,7173,7174,7175,7176,7177,7168,7178,7179,7180,7181,7182,7183″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1426092376214{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]The hellebores were just beautiful – the wind made it difficult to take photos of them at times! One of my favourites from the day was that unusual iris with its pale blue and yellow petals. Just gorgeous! We bought a couple of plants to take away with us too, so hoping to get them planted out soon. And we’re really looking forward to going back in a few weeks to see some more of the spring flowers and how the garden has grown![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Today we’ve spent the whole day in the garden, which has been so lovely! The weather was sunny but not too hot, which meant that we could tackle some of the jobs that we’ve been meaning to do for ages. This involved a lot of digging! The first job was digging up the strawberry patch, which had pretty much been overrun by weeds as you can see:

The plants had also spread out quite a lot, so some of them were growing in the lawn! Having cleared all the plants I was really pleased to find that our peonies have survived the winter – they are quite difficult to grow but they are in quite a sheltered corner. I’m really looking forward to seeing them bloom this year – hopefully I’ll be able to get a photo!

This year, we’re trying to keep the strawberries a little more contained, so we made a little area for them using this willow edging – it looks a little bit like an Anglo Saxon settlement, but I’m hoping it will stop them spreading too much! It will also help to keep snails at bay, so fingers crossed…

After lunch we carried on digging in order to get rid of more weeds! We cleared the raised beds ready for planting and tidied up around them. This is what they looked like before and half way through:

Once cleared, we planted some veg – carrots, spring onions, courgettes, rocket and spinach. All of these things seem to grow well in our garden, and we’re hoping that they’ll do even better with these raised bed covers that let light, air and water in and keep everything else out! The woodchips around the edge should help us to keep control of the weeds.

The final job was to plant some potatoes in pots – we’ve gone for Charlottes because you can pretty much do anything with them and they’re easy to grow! As they grow we’ll keep covering them with soil until they reach the top of the pots.

I did have a little incident whilst gardening today – I stood on a rake and it hit me in the face! It was just like in a cartoon and it really hurt…my eye socket is rather sore now! So to make myself feel better I took these lovely photos – I can’t remember the exact name of the ones on the right hand side but I’ll look them up and let you know when I next do a gardening post.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

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Apparently, it is spring…but you could have fooled me! It is snowing as I write this, and as I look out at my garden it seems as though spring is on hold. The bulbs have half come up and have realised that it is far too cold to contemplate flowering – I just love how they do that.

We do have some beautiful crocuses that have decided to brave it, and it was quite sunny a couple of days ago (only briefly, which fooled us because it was still freezing!). I managed to get some lovely snaps of them and they are really beautiful!

This variety is called Crocus Pickwick and I love the patterns on the inside – so striking.

We’ve got lots of lovely spring bulbs waiting to bloom, so hurry up sunny weather!

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