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Garden Diary – Time to smell the roses, but mind the new fly!
Monday 4th May 2026 Lots of yummy strawberries on the way 🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓 Just need to keep squirrel Nutkin off 🐿️🐿️🐿️🐿️ #kitchengarden #growyourown #Homegrown The Rhodo down in the white garden, against next doors Bramley (yes scrumping does go on), at the beginning of the bank holiday weekend 🌿🤍🌿🤍🌿🤍 Wishing you all a super bank holiday Monday 🌞💦 #bankholidayweekend #whiteflowers Tuesday 5th May 2026 After a big chop last year, I’m relieved my rhododendron has survived & is still flowering 🌿💜🌿💜🌿💜🌿 The sun finally came out around 6 last night, this seems to be so often the way ☀️ #TuesdayBlue #rhododendron Wednesday 6th May 2026 As ever, the first rose to…
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Garden Diary – Tomatoes in, pears on the way & yet more tulips!
Monday 20th April 2026 Anemone ‘bee surprise’, a hybrid created by my little flying friends 🐝❤️💙🩷 Isn’t it gorgeous 😍 #magentamonday #bloomscrolling Tuesday 21st April 2026 Yeh, tomatoes planted 🤗 This always feels like the proper start of the kitchen garden 🪴🍅🍅🍅 #tomatotuesday Friday 1st May 2026 Morning, my orange Azalea ‘Gibraltar’ has started to bloom in this week’s beautiful warm, sunny weather 🌿🧡❤️🌿 #FlowersOnFriday #Azalea #bloomscrolling I’m over the moon that these beautiful, long lived tulips have come back! Bought from wilkos years ago, called ‘big blue’ they didn’t turn up last year & I thought they’d rotted. Hurray 🌿🌷💜🌷💜🌿 #FlowersOnFriday #tulips #bloomscrolling Saturday 2nd May 2026 Do you…
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Garden Diary – And yet more Tulips!
Tuesday 14th April 2026 The tulips are lasting well. Some early varieties have been & gone but it’s proving to be a good year for them 🌷🌷🌷 #tuliptuesday I was so busy yesterday, I forgot #magentamonday which these would have been at home with 💕💕💕💕💕 Wednesday 15th April 2926 I sowed these Hollyhocks late last year & they grew like mad in the greenhouse, even producing a flower in mid-winter! Anyway they are shooting for the sky now they’re in the border & providing food for my little friends 🌿🌸🐝💕 #wildlifewednesday #insects #bloomscrolling Thursday 16th April 2026 My new favourite tulip ❤️🤍❤️🤍 Although it does change daily, I love them…
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Garden Diary – It’s time for a Tulip explosion!
Monday 6th April 2026 Tulip ‘Little beauty’ are back for a second year 🌿💕🌷 And the super thing about them, is they’re a species variety so will come back every year, multiplying too 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 #magentamonday #tulips #bankholiday #eastermonday Tuesday 7th April 2026 Tulip ‘Slawa’ is a new one for me this year. I do love the bi-coloured blooms 🌿🧡🌷🩷🌿 Apparently we’re in for the warmest day of the year today 🌞 #TulipTuesday Wednesday 8th April 2026 The third of my miniature species Tulips came out in yesterday’s sunshine ☀️ She’s called ‘Little Princess’ & like the pink & white ones, she too comes back every year and multiplies 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡 #tulips she…
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Garden Diary – A Windy Easter Break with Tulip Mania
Easter week started off sunny with a cool breeze, but the wind cranked up by the weekend! As the tulips started coming out in force, I found myself once again thinking about tulip mania that hit the world in the 17th century. I’m quite sure it would have grabbed me, I do love them so. Unfortunately though, I had one of those annoying surprises, where a flower blooms and it’s the wrong colour! Eight supposedly dark pink tulips called ‘Ronaldo’, came up red. Serves me right for buying tulips named after a footballer lol. This seems to be happening more and more, I’ve tried twice to order an orange iris…
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Garden Diary – Newts, green bugs & crazy bees!
It’s was a proper wildlife week, with the newts in full mating season chasing each other around the pond. Insects returning all around the garden, including the green shield bugs making an appearance. But most bizarre was a bee looking insect that was flying in such a crazy way. Darting from flower to flower with a most manic action. It also had its glossa (tongue) out as it was flying. I was quite pleased that I managed to video it and posted it on social media, tagging the ‘bumblebee trust’ to ask for help with identification. To my delight someone on instagram identified it as a ‘female hairy footed flower…
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Garden Diary – Lets catch-up on Spring!
Have you ever heard anyone say that they don’t like Spring? I haven’t. I’d say it’s most people’s favourite season, it’s just such an optimistic time of the year. Not just for us gardeners, but especially for us gardeners! All those, not very attractive bulbs we planted in the autumn are bursting into flower. And making us glad that we bothered now that we’re rewarded with bright colours. And this week saw the first tulips arrive to the colour party. I’ve gradually been planting more hyacinths into the borders and they’re perfuming the air as I get into the garden more. I have them in a pot for at least…
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Garden Diary – The Big Catch-up
Gosh, I think we’re in need of a bit of a catch-up! As there wasn’t much going on in the garden at the beginning of the year, combined with, rather a lot going on inside the house – yes renovations continue… I decided to have a short break from the socials. I ended up having six weeks off daily posting and was a bit sporadic to begin with. But as the garden started bursting into life I got back into my stride. Unfortunately I just haven’t had time to put it all together for you, until now. The big catch up As ever, the first gardening job of the year…
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Garden Diary – It’s Christmas & we’re past the shortest day!
What’s not to be happy about. Christmas festivities and we’ve celebrated the winter solstice. I think none of us can wait to get to the other side of the shortest day, we feel we are heading, albeit slowly, once more back towards the long, warm, days of summer. Having said that, I do like the seasons, I’m quite sure that we wouldn’t appreciate the longer days if we didn’t have the short cold ones. And after all our British climate does produce some truly beautiful gardens. On those dullest of days, I like to spend time looking back at the colourful photos of the summer garden, making plans and generally…
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Garden Diary – Planning, Weather & Christmas Choirs
It’s a time for looking back at photos of how the garden looked this year, and deciding what worked well and what needs improvement. The photographs are an invaluable tool to remind you of how things looked. I was particularly pleased with the dwarf tulips I grew for the first time. And as I grew them in pots I’m quite hopeful that they’ll come again. There were many pictures of my purple rhododendron which is already covered in buds. And lots of the Pink ranunculus which have shot up lots of foliage, I have no idea whether they are supposed to have done that at this time of year. I…
