What's happening in your garden this spring?

[Stephen]

Well done on catching Mr ratty

[plankton]

All his mates'll be round with the baseball bats now......

[BigBen]

Get a border terrier. Mine is an expert in rat catching. She's had a few we didn't know about in the garden!

[fr499y]

Thought I’d revive this seeing as it’s spring time!!

The alliums are looking awesome this year and the wild patch just keeps getting better and better.

[VikingMummy2015]

I just got a garden after years without having one. Turning it from lots of grass/dandelions/nettles/brambles into something nice. Lots of digging today to start creating a shrubbery at the far end (it’s 50+ foot long) and using some of the lifted turfs to build up an extension of the rockery my mum started off.

What the council strimmed it down to before I moved in:

How my mum left it for me after a visit:



And now I’m undoing some of her hard work:


But the flowers in my reclaimed wheelbarrow planter out the front are looking nice at least

[fr499y]

These alliums get better and better

[Gingerlove05]

We’ll I’ve not done much with the garden for a while. Our patch I’d left for some time and it had mostly grown over with grass and crap and it had started to get us down a bit. Especially as Smudge is there.
And now with my OH working from home 50% of the time shes got into it a bit more starting with houseplants (she has had a few for quite a while), but now moved to the garden, which has resparked my interest.
So through most of the spring we haven’t done huge amounts, although we did keep the local bird population going. We had several families of starlings and house sparrows relying on us and our feeder. We had over 30 in the garden at one point and one particular starling had 5 youngsters all shouting at her (we’re assuming her)
But in the past few weeks we have kicked plans into action, we have bought quite a few plants both house and garden. Several of the garden plants I have never tried before so should be interesting, also my mate from work gave us a twisted willow and my OH’s best mate gave us some strawberries
The plan is to build up our patch into a box/container, I have 120kg of soil arriving tomorrow, just need to get the wood together to make the border. Then hopefully I can plant the plants and have a proper little flower patch (in memory of Smudge). We have a lot more plans than that but one thing at a time
Anyway I’ll stop babbling, here’s some pictures. Things have gone from:

[Staffylover]

Plant I am enjoying most at the moment in my garden is the giant grass,



This week I spent some time sorting out the pot display on the patio, I have built these up over years and have just been given another 6! It's mostly annual plants in them which is quite time consuming but only once a year as I don't bother with a winter display,



I have a number of flower beds in the garden, they are all raised or at least mounded up which makes things a bit easier, for years it was just shrubs, then I tried and failed with veg, then a couple of years ago I converted the 'veg beds' to perennial flowers which I enjoy a lot more, but I can't really give it the needed time, so it always looks like a larger version of a jungle effect aquarium, now and again I blitz it so I just about keep it under control, I am still trying out plants to see what really works on my very thin and dry soil, and what I like, Salvia's tend to do well but they are still in bud at the moment, Foxgloves however are in full flower, this year I have a load of self seeded ones come up, and they look amazing! I am already planning how I can achieve this on purpose so have ordered some plug plants online, and will also save some of the seed

[SPACKlick]

Had quite a few things bloom.

Rose bushes have had their first flower, plenty more to come. Slight outbreak of green aphids at the moment, hopefully not enough to do damage. Might collect some and offer them to the tetras.




Camelia has had some lovely flowers (The tulips have all gone now)


The Tiarella is looking wonderfully fluffy


Bleeding Heart Dicentra is a new addition


Lupin's have gone absoluteley nuts this year.


I would recommend Bonfire Begonia to everyone, the photos do not do justice to how ludicrously bright the Orange flowers are. They look synthetic.


Some pansies and violets


And the cornflowers mean we have bees all over the garden

[SPACKlick]

Roses are really starting to go or it this week and the smell of them is wafting round the whole house. Very happy with myself. Just need to remember to prune them hard at the end of the season so we get it this good next year.