Plans for the Garden

One of my favourite pastimes is listening to a podcast of Gardeners' Question Time while I make my regular journey from London to Swindon. My imagination goes into overdrive, mentally planting my new border. Yesterday the Parkers' catalogue came and I started making notes of the shrubs and perennials I would be buying.

The border (left) was cleared a few months ago, sleepers put round the edge and a couple of fruit trees planted. My plan is for a pink, white and purple colour scheme. I want to try to have all-year-round interest so there will be some shrubs, ornamental cream hostas, Japanese anemones and a honeysuckle on the fence. I'm going to plant a lot of my favourites: penstemons, salvias, cosmos (my mum sent me some seed from hers), dianthus and dahlias.

I'll soon be filling my "Monty Don" compost box and using my dream shed for all my potting up. I wish I had a "before" shot but these are the "afters". The shed now has a new roof, a cute half-timbered appearance and new shelves and staging. John put in strip lighting and hooks for all the tools.

Meanwhile spring is pushing winter out of the way. The bulbs in the front garden - hyacinths, tete-a-tete, tulips - are all out. The thorny old hedge has started to get its yellow mantle. And helleborus niger is having a bit of a moment (below).

106/365: Mellow yellow

The back garden looks good at this time of year - there's a lot of yellow and the tulips are all coming out. As the spring progresses, I try to restore colour with plenty of containers but having a two week holiday early in June means I have to be careful about those which need too much water, so we never have as many as I would like. I find that when we get back from holiday, most of the best plants have gone from the garden centres.

I am hoping to try growing some dahlias this year. I particularly like the "Bishop" varieties with the dark leaves and dark red blooms.

I'll also be growing some fuchsias. When I was young I hated them, thinking they were overblown and kitsch. Now I love them for those qualities.

The "front garden" is just a flower bed and border. The flower bed has 12 roses, three varieties, and the border shrubs and bulbs. The roses look really healthy at this time of the year - all the same size and growing vigorously. I'll be a bit more judicious with the Rose Plus this year. Last year I gave them too much in May and while we had a magnificent display of flowers in May/June, they were exhausted until August.

84/365: To bee or not to bee

The sun was out and the bees were buzzing among my hyacinths. How wonderful they smell! It's so great to see all the daffodils out at the same time - usually the early Tete a Tetes have died off before the hyacinths make their dramatic entry. Can't wait for the tulips.