It’s a while since I showed you what’s going on in my garden. In fact these photos are quite out of date, for one thing we’ve finished woodstaining all the fence now, it was almost a Sisyphian task but we got there in the end. Below is the apple tree which was almost the only thing in the garden when we moved here, there were also some alpine strawberry plants.

But I’ve been hard at work in the garden planting things and I’ve also moved the apple tree because I’m planning to espalier it along the back fence next year, I didn’t like the dwarf aspect of it as it didn’t fit in with the other trees which I’ve planted, which include, two plum trees, a pear tree and a cherry tree.

The photo above is of a cotoneaster, there are two others next to it which you can’t see and eventually I hope that the fence will hardly be visible at all, when all the shrubs start growing. The orange flowers are marigolds which I planted in one of those seed strips of paper which are permeated with seeds, it was called something like country mixture but only a few marigolds and love-in-a-mist germinated.

Above is a photo of a sort of rockery area which isn’t finished, but then – whose garden ever is finished? I’ve planted sedums, saxifrage, crocus, dwarf narcissi, dwarf tulips, thrift, pansies, cyclamen and lots of other things in it. I must look out all my plant labels and record everything properly. More rocks and driftwood are needed to finish this area off eventually.

Back to near the apple tree again and considering the time of year there’s still quite a lot in bloom. Lobelia, sedum, orange poppies, asters, carnations/pinks and since taking the photo the roses have started flowering again, it has been so mild that I think they must be feeling that it’s spring again.

I did make a short video of the garden last week on the spur of the moment, mainly because it was pretty windy – we were getting the tail end of hurricane Gonzalo – and I thought I would quickly sprint round the garden before all the leaves got blown off. But I’m swithering about whether I should inflict it on you – or not. The quality isn’t brilliant, especially at the beginning, mainly because of the wind sound. Then of course my mind went blank when I was looking at all my plants. Put your hand up if you want to see it!