It rained.

The garden was desperate for a drink and the odd shower over the last couple of days has really greened everything up!

The fruit trees have been loaded with blossom, the grass is growing quickly and the bluebells are casting a haze of blue over the bank. There isn't any way to take a picture of the whole garden so here is a load of different views.




Hard to take in that all 95% or more of the trees and shrubs have grown from seed or cuttings in the last nineteen years.

The weather has been glorious so I have spent 4 days clearing brambles in the garden and laying a bit of hedge . Muscles I had forgotten about are aching after all the sawing, lopping and raking.

The garden covers about an acre .There is an area near the house which I try to keep tidy (ish) and a much bigger area on which we have grown a lot of trees (mainly from seed)

The rest is a long bank which, if I manage to keep it clear, produces successive carpets of colour through the year. First the white wood anemones, then the yellow celandines,bluebells, forget-me-nots,red campion and fogloves. In the autumn all the coloured fungus appear too. The bank hasn't been cleared properly for a couple of years so it is hard work.

If the weather stays dry we will have a bonfire to get rid of the briars.

I am always careful clearing this area I know that sometimes the hedgehogs hibernate up there. Yesterday I came across this one. I carefully piled a mound of dry leaves over him so that I don't disturb him again.

You can just see his prickles in the picture.