It's mid April now and the tulips are looking lovely. They're so colourful you can see why people got so carried away with them in the past.

We have tulips in both the front and back garden. The ones in the front are orange, yellow or white whereas there's a broader range of colours in the back.

Everything's greening up nicely and making a good show. Unfortunately the weeds are doing the same so you might spot one of two of those in the photos!

The bluebells are just starting to open. I love the way they make a blue haze.

 

The forget-me-nots are everywhere. I'm very happy to let the self seed in the beds but it took a while to weed the gravel path yesterday and pull the ones in there out.

Even though the daffodils are about done, there's still plenty of yellow around with the Kerria and Forsythia.

Rosemary for remembrance (or cooking!)

The potatoes are under the "tunnels". The Swift are peeping through but none of the others are showing yet.

Plenty of this around in the hedge bottom (goes well with the dandelions).

The wallflowers are doing well now. I brought some yellow tulips down from Yorkshire and planted them in the same bed but they're not quite open yet.

Our magnolia seems to flower quite a bit later than some of the others around here but it's a lovely colour when it catches up.

Yet more yellow, this time from the mahonia.

The bed on the left was our project for this morning. There was a lot of ivy and honeysuckle taking over the tree so it was time to tackle it. There's a lot less now but lots of bags for Jonathon to take to the green tip next weekend!

My other main job for today was to pot on some of the plug plants (Nicotiana Malibu and Antirrhinum Appeal) so they're now in the greenhouse.

The aubretia is starting to provide patches of colour - lots more to come hopefully.

The bed below is probably my favourite at the moment - full of spring flowers (but I love the rest of my garden as well!)

The following photos were all taken earlier in the month. It's amazing how the garden changes in April.

We'll start with the food beds. From the left we have gooseberries, raspberris and strawberries with rhubarb sharing the strawberry bed. All duly weeded and netted this weekend (Easter) to try and make sure we get the fruit rather than the birds.

All looking neat in the greenhouse, just need them to start growing now.

More strawberries in the above bed, under cricket netting (thanks Dad). The towers are an experiment for this year so we'll see how they get on. The CDs are supposed to be bird scarers but not sure how well they work.

The canes over the onions are to try and stop the blackbirds from playing with the onions and pulling them out. There are potatoes under the fleecy tunnels (Picasso - main crop, Swift - first early, Hunter - second early and Charlotte - salad so a good selection).

We also have peas, broad beans, runner beans, leeks, carrots and courgettes but runner beans and courgettes are still in the greenhouse and peas and broad beans will be subject to phased planting. All very technical stuff!

There's plenty of frogspawn in the pond this year.

The Kerria Japonica is flowering nicely.

These little tulips are the first out every year.

These little anemones are lovely. They close their petals at night then open them again when the sun comes out!

"Hello Janet, we're here now".

The forsythia adds a couple of bursts of yellow.

Lovely stripy grass courtesy of Jonathon!

There are still a few daffodils here and there.

The hyacinths are also starting to flower.

The Red Robin trees are living up to their name this year ...

... especially the bush.

The heuchera bed provides colour all year round.

You can see that Terry and Simon, our workmen, are still around because there are a few bags of rubble and their bath on the patio.

I've been "harvesting" the bamboo this weekend so there's a bit more room near this seat.

This mini holly has got lots of colour.

It looks like the choisya will have some pretty white flowers before too much longer.

The primulas and primroses add lots of colour at this time of year.

The spiraea (on the right) is lovely at this time of year. There are a couple of others in the front garden.

This is what one of new hyacinths looks like just before it blossoms.

We had our drinkings on the patio today but haven't managed lunch outside yet.

A final view from the front garden, complete with a bee visitor on the right.

That's it for this walk around. I'll add more photos next month.