In the spring garden

Before I start, I have to tell you that this is not my garden. I so wish it was, but a girl can dream :-) It is a source of inspiration though. I hope that one day my garden will look a bit like this.

At the end of April last year,  my youngest daughter and I visited Great Dixter house and Gardens in Northiam, England. It was my third visit, having been there before in late spring and summer. I wrote a post about it before. If you are interested, please have a look here.

The Tudor house was once the home of Nathaniel Lloyd, who bought it in 1910. It was restored by the well known architect Edwin Luytens.

LLoyd and Luytens designed the framework for the garden, but it was Nathaniel's son, television presenter and author Christopher Lloyd, who made the garden what it is today: a fine example of an arts and crafts garden. Christopher Lloyd passed away more than ten years ago, but his head gardener and friend, Fergus Garrett, still keeps up his good work.

Although it was icy cold on the day of our visit, the garden was a riot of colour. I don't want to use too many words describing it. My photo's will tell you what it is that I saw.

If you would like to read more about Great Dixter house and gardens, please have a look at their website.

Have a great few weeks!

Love,

Madelief X

* Thank you for your kind comments on my last blogpost. I will try to reply them the coming week. 

Last years garden highlights

A month into the new year, and a month closer to the start of a new gardening season. At our allotment complex the official start of the season is somewhere at the beginning of April.

I haven't been in the garden that much lately. Only once or twice, to clean up and plant bulbs (several varieties of tulips, daffodils, alliums and crocuses). I bought bags full of them in the sale. To me they are really difficult to resist :-)

Somehow there is always something to do in the garden. My daughters help me out whenever they can, but they prefer to come when the sun is out and the temperatures are mild. Which means that in winter I work on my own mostly, wearing my warm boots, a thick sweater and my wax coat. They never fail to keep me warm. Whenever I take a break, I warm my hands at the ancient stove in my garden house. My boyfriend accompanies me now and then. He does those chores I don't really like (hurray!). He cut back Paul's Himalayan Musk in one of the trees (a rambler rose), repaired part of the roof of the garden house, and got rid of some thick root sprouts which grew out of the hazel tree. 

When stretched out on my sofa at home, I leaf through garden magazines and books, in search of inspiration. I use last years photo's to see what worked well and what has definitely got to can change. In this post you can see last years garden highlights. I chose the photo's that I liked best. I hope they inspire you too.

Next time I will take you to Great Dixter gardens in England.

Happy month of February!

Love,

Madelief x