I took a few photos of my garden last week when we were having a very long dry spell, since then we have had some much needed rain. Below is a photo of a blue clematis alpina which is against the fence, it’s my favourite clematis, of the ones I have anyway. There’s also an acer/Japanese maple on the right just coming into leaf.

The patch below is the first area to come into flower as it’s where I have most of my snowdrops, but the narcissus, primulas, cherry blossom and heathers are flowering now.

I feed the birds all winter but will be removing the last of the feeders when this one below is empty. The birds don’t need supplements over the summer. The tree the feeder is hanging on is a pear tree, very late in showing signs of growth but it has since begun to blossom.

The photo below would have been quite nice if I hadn’t inadvertently left my weed bucket in view! On the far right is the remains of what was a giant cherry tree that I planted just a couple of years ago, it grew about 20 feet inside a few years, you wouldn’t think it was possible. Anyway, I realised it was going to be far too big for our garden so it has been reduced and the bark cut all around it as it was impossible to move it. I plan to keep the skeleton of the tree to grow my rambling rose Rambling Rector over it. It also produced loads of suckers from the roots. Whoever thought it was a good tree to sell to the general public was off their head. Very few gardens can accommodate a tree which apparently grows to 100 feet, something that the sellers kept quiet about! You live and learn. There are far too may trees in this garden, which I knew was a mistake, but I wanted them all, sheer greed. They are mainly small fruit trees though – apples, pear and plum. Fingers crossed we don’t get a late frost as we did last year and all the buds turned black and fell off.

I had to trace the tree roots and pull them up where possible, that made a complete mess of the chips at the path and around the table which is to the left and out of view below. I thought it might settle down itself but it hasn’t, so that’ll be next on the agenda for needing attention. Since taking these photos the garden has been cleaned up and my brown bin is full of garden waste, but there’s yet more to do. A garden is always a work in progress!