I’m spending lots of time in the garden, sowing seeds, repotting baby plants and generally tidying up. This year I am vowing to have the part of the garden that is in the front of the living room reasonably tidy at all times.


You can see that my big cherry tree is flowering (the one with the white flowers), as is my pixirosso apple tree (the one with pink flowers) which was previously in a pot in the side yard but I finally decided to plant it in the ground here. I like it here as I can enjoy its pretty flowers everyday in spring.


The fruits on my big cherry tree seem to be loved by birds and they get to them before me (it’s to big to protect with netting) so I bought a columnar cherry tree last year (syliva variety) and planted it in the ground this spring. It is flowering so I’m hoping to get all the fruits from this one this year (it’s easy to protect).



I also moved my apricot tree (early moorpark variety) in the backgarden in order to protect the flowers from the wind. It’s currently in a 66cm pot and was profusely flowering in april. I hope I’ll get fruits from it this year.


A new addition (a gift) is an olive tree. I’ve always wanted one so am very happy to have been given one. This one is already 1m70 tall (without the pot) and it seems to have lots of tiny fruits (unless they are flowers?). I’m still debating whether to just repot it in a bigger but smallish pot (so that I can take it indoor in winter) or to leave it outdoor with protection in winter and in that case I could repot it in a big pot (55 or 66cm) or plant it in the ground.


I’m glad that I planted lots of flower bulbs last winter. They really make my garden pretty in spring. This is the small raised bed just in front of the living room patio doors, I have a thornless blackberry bush as a main plant in it with lots of other things (small peony tree, hardy fuschia, lots of tulips and daffodils and a few herbs (oregano and thyme). I plant my tulips and daffodils really deep so that I can still plants vegetables above them in summer. I’ve already direct sowed some beetroot there and some chives as front hedging and if there is space left I will grow a small cucumber plant up that little trellis on the side of the bed.

My favourite tulip in the garden is this one. I love its colours, and the way its petals open up. The flower is bigger than other tulips and it seems to get bigger every year. It’s in the L shaped raised bed in the gravel area. It’s a pity I don’t know its name (it was from a mix pack) as I would like to buy more of it.

This one is one of my midget apple trees (in a 55cm pot). I got 5 apples from it last year but this spring it hasn’t flowered yet (the other one on the side yard already has some flowers). On its left, you can also see a pink magnolia tree – susan variety (in a small pot but I will repot it in a bigger one soon) which I didn’t expect to flower yet but it did.


I’ve started to harden off some plants during daytime and am still sowing seeds. The chilli plant below is one I rescued from the bargain corner in Homebase, I usually don’t buy chilli plants as I prefer to grow them from seeds but this one was the same price as a seed packet and already has some fruits so I thought I may as well buy it (it’s called Big Banana from the Jamie Oliver range), I’ll save seeds from it to resow next year.

The plug plants in the green tray are also a bargain buy from Thompson and Morgan: statice (I was offered a bouquet of flowers that contained one dry purple statice in it more than a year ago and kept the statice and it is still looking good so I decided to grow some this year to use later as dry bouquets for the house); a pack of 36 plug plants just cost one pound more than the packet of seeds so it made sense to buy the plants. I’ve sowed some broad beans in those milk bottles.

I don’t have pictures of the part of the garden in front of the kitchen yet (except the potting bench above) as it still looks messy but I will show you pictures of the side yard next time.














































































