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

This is the first year that I have had flowers from this lovely pale pink camellia which I bought from Woolworths a few years ago (how I miss Woolworths!!). Th weather here is very cold again and we had a frost last night.

We had some very warm weather at the end of March and the garden was a mass of colour.

Azaleas enjoying the sunshine in a

friend's garden at the end of March

Rhubarb starting to grow in early spring. I like to make rhubarb crumbles - I add a little chopped ginger root to the fruit. Orange juice and peel is also good. Or maybe mix with some strawberries or raspberries

Spring pots and baskets on the patio table

Mahonia flowering in the front garden

Blue hyacinths

A beautiful early spring clematis I saw on a walk

Red camellia growing in front of our landing window

The Thrive Herb Garden in Battersea Park. Thrive is a charity which uses gardening to change the lives of disabled people.

http://www.thrive.org.uk/about-thrive.aspx