spring is coming!

Over the weekend we went back to the old house, which is very nearly sold/rented out - just another week to go! Spring in the old garden was very obvious, with snowdrops, cyclamen and viburnum flowering away.

Here in the new garden it is a more subtle affair, but still the signs are there if you poke about a bit. I spent some time out there today clearing overgrown vinca and chopping back where needed. It is all rather Secret Garden'ish, which is just how I like a new garden. There is the joy of poking about and finding things you never suspected were there, shoots poking through gravel, buds swelling and flowers shyly hiding until you take the trouble to gently bend back a leaf or two. You'll find a few more pictures here.

We discovered over Christmas that this garden was nurtured for forty years by our neighbour's parents. How delightful to know a little bit of the history of the place. Now we can love it and look for it's spirit ourselves, adding out own little quirks and bits of history.

The front garden, which once swooned to the scent of honeysuckle, was cleared by the people we bought it from; reduced to a barren patch of gravel. However, I have plans and plants and good contacts in the nursery trade who are going to create us a new garden over the next week. At the moment it is a line of sand on the gravel, but I can see it in my mind's eye in a few year's time, enclosing the front a bit, giving a sense of privacy, but embracing all who approach the front door, or at least that is the plan!

I have brought a collection of plants from our old place, including some cyclamen and a single snowdrop that I hope will survive.

They are all destined for the new front garden, and will include two trees that I have been growing in pots since my daughter was quite a small child. They will give spring flowers and autumn colour and berries for the birds, since both are native. Then there is a collection of lavender cuttings I took last year, for scent, some grasses to shimmer in the breeze and trap light, and a large pot with wisteria to flow along a trellis and fill the air with perfume, so we can give pleasure to ourselves and to passers by.

I will keep you posted as to progress.