My May flowers, ready or not!

It is Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day again, and just for fun I checked what I wrote last year on this day: “Here in London we have experienced the strangest spring ever, with a relatively warm winter, a dash of high summer for a few days in March and then over 5 weeks of rain and persistently cold weather with very low night temperatures. My garden has never been as late as it is this year.” As all of us living in Britain know, the rain just continued and I thought it couldn’t get any worse than what we had last year. Ha! I remember that whiff of summer we had in March last year, it was lovely, that was the summer we got last year. Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day means lots of photos and an extra long post here on my blog, so get yourself a cup of your favourite brew and park yourself somewhere comfortable, you might be here for a while :-) - and as always, please click on the photos for a larger version, it really is worth it.

The sweetest mice for a garden

We have had a nice week of quite warm weather and sunny spells, top temperature of 23 degrees C, not exactly summer but a very nice change from the below 10 we had for weeks on end.

Weapons of precise destruction

Vine weevils. Just hearing the words makes me shudder. Small yucky white grubs in the soil and adult grey-black beetles that eats unsightly marks on the leaves on many types of garden plants. Have you had any in your garden? Do you even know if you have any? You might have some, without it representing an infestation.

Scent from heaven!

In my previous post I hinted that I had bought a tree, but not what kind of tree. I guess it is time to reveal what exactly I have bought? For those of you who know my garden well through my many photos, now is possibly the time to start wondering if I have lost my marbles...a tree, in my tiny garden? Where am I going to put it? Well, let me first remind you that I still have my huge conifer at the bottom of my garden, which no one really sees on my photos, only the tree trunk. You can see the conifer in its whole, tall glory on a previous post here.  And only 5 months ago I got rid of an 8 m tall holly tree next to my seating area, so my garden is no stranger to trees, but I am not replacing my holly tree with this new purchase, it needs full sun and will have to be placed on the sunny side of my garden.

Daffodils and tulips, a short visit

The winter has been oh so long, the spring very reluctant to even start but when we finally got spring here in London it came with a bang and the last week we have certainly been enjoying spring – and even summer like temperatures. Today it was 21 degrees in my garden, tomorrow we are promised even higher temperatures – before everything comes crashing down and Friday will arrive with 12 degrees and perhaps night frost. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, I just hoped it would have lasted a bit longer...

April flowers in my garden

Yesterday, Sunday was an absolutely stunning day, the warmest day of the year so far here in London, with 22 degrees in the afternoon. We have waited a very long time for a day like that! I used the opportunity to take pictures for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, although a bright sunny day is not at all a good photography day, I much prefer slightly overcast, as pictures of flowers and plants look so much better in a less harsh light. But the sun we had yesterday was very much welcome, pictures or no pictures, I haven’t really seen proper sunshine for what feels like forever!

Beautiful Hellebores

It’s second week of April, usually this is the time when my rhododendrons and azaleas are flowering and the first of my roses pops out too, my camellia is usually finished flowering or almost finished and all the daffodils and crocuses are long gone. This year is a bit different though.

A pictures says ....

At this time of year I usually take lots of pictures in my garden, documenting every emerging plant and every plant in flower. The last 2 months I have taken so few pictures I couldn’t really believe it when I started adding them up. I have wanted to go outside this week to take some pictures for my blog but to be honest it has been so cold I haven’t really been up for any photo safari, not even just outside in my garden.