Today I visited the beautiful flower festival at All Souls Church in Sutton Green. The festival was part of the celebrations of  the 90th Anniversary of the church. I was reminded of last years Flower Festival at our parish church St Peters which celebrated 400 years of the King James Bible. You can see some of the arrangements from the earlier festival by following this link -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruthiegledhill/sets/72157627822455350

Here are some pictures of the lovely garden at Westways Farm, Gracious Pond Road, Chobham. The garden was open for charity at the beginning of May.

I have come to the conclusion that I take the self sown plants in my garden too much for granted. They are invaluable for supplying colour and need very little help from me. Purple aquilegias are the most abundant. They really are beautiful flowers.

                                                                      

This white aquilegia wasnt self sown.
I think I bought it at a HPS plant sale

This is a blackcurrant sage which I bought at the end of last autumn and overwintered in the greenhouse. I shall plant it in the border now the weather is warmer

This auricula, which is just coming into flower has also been overwintered in the (cold) greenhouse

The saladini salad leaves in the greenhouse are delicious. I sowed them early in March.

At the bottom left are larger lettuce plants and spinach  that have overwintered and are now going to seed. Young tomato plants are on the floor in the centre

Aubergines are in the big pots here. The smaller pots contain cucumber and courgette plants waiting to be potted up

The supermarket ginger root which I potted up is just beginning to grow, Behind are some dried statice from last years garden

I have been visiting some of the  gardens which open under the National Gardens 'Yellow Book' scheme to raise  money for charity

http://www.ngs.org.uk/about-us/our-history.aspx


We visited Vale End in the beautiful Surrey village of Albury a few weeks ago when tulips, hyacinths, and forget me nots were in flower.
This is a beautiful walled garden built on many levels of a steep slope

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The garden I visited the following weekend was a town garden near Clapham Common in London. A complete contrast to the previous week as there was very little grass. Again the tulips were in full flower and the garden was a mass of colour.

 

 

 

There were beautiful rambling roses

 A  geodetic domegreenhouse

 Euphorbia melliflera

This weekend brought torrential rain and flooding. Keen garden visitors are not put off so easily and today I braved flooded roads to drive into the beautiful Surrey Hills to 'Walton Poor House' near Ranmore. Another beautiful garden of about 4 acres with trees and shrubs planted over the last 40 years.

 

More pictures of my spring garden

Another view of self sown euphorbia and primroses on the patio

Blue violas and self sown primroses again

I love the way gold leafed plants add colour to the spring garden

Spirea 'Goldmound'

Chaenomeles provide lovely red, pink or white flowers for many weeks in spring. Later on the fruits can be dried for pot pourri

Chaenomeles - the false quince.

Blue violas

and blue muscari

Golden ivy, pink hyacinths and red tulips

Self-sown euphorbia on the patio

Although we are still having frosty nights and heavy showers during the day there is also plenty of sunshine. I have been going round the garden taking photos and shall put some on this blog.

These beautiful red tulips were given to us by friends for our 40th wedding anniversary 

Colourful wallflowers on the patio