Golden hour garden

Hi again! This post has been a while coming, but I really wanted to show you some photos of my garden before all the spring glory fades. I'm starting with a picture from the back garden in the evening - you've seen this before, but perhaps not during the golden hour, when the light from the sinking sun glows behind the claret leaves of the maple?

Actually, I really wanted to show you these pictures from my front garden. This has been my pet project since late winter. I've been working on it a while, but the time has never been right to take photos - it hasn't grown in enough, it's not in flower, the beds need weeding, the grass needs mowing, it will look better next week. Oh well, enough of that, it looks as good as it's going to right now, and plenty of things are in flower, so let's have a look shall we?

About a year ago I started work on this little corner garden. I removed a lot of shrubbery, cut back some trees, and planted lavender around the edges. I also added this birdhouse. Ever since then, I've been imagining a clematis growing up the birdhouse. I have grown clematis before - a vigorous montana which took over a fence before I chopped it out. I'm hoping this hybrid one will be more well behaved. I'd like it to stay right where it is, but it will probably disappear up into the tree top... that's if it doesn't decide it hates its position, and die! Anyway, we will see... and perhaps we will take a cutting too, just to be safe.

Another big job for me early this spring was these round planters. I'd bought the two flowering cherries last autumn in a sale, but when they woke up for spring I knew I had to get them in! I wanted round planters as a feature and had originally planned to make brick ones, but after a while I realised that was going to be right out of my skill level, and if I wanted something to put the trees in before they flowered I had to come up with a plan B. So I used some wooden garden edging, and painted it this reddish pink... which to my mind is not that dissimilar to a brick colour, but a lot more 'me' :)

The trees looked stunning when they flowered. I can't wait for them to grow and bush out more, to form my own little miniature cherry blossom avenue. I'm sorry they aren't flowering in the photo above, but isn't the rhododendron in the background amazing? I identified her recently as Mrs GW Leak. I'm not sure who she's named after, but she is very beautiful with her freckled pink cheeks. 

Here's my little birdhouse corner again. At the foot of the birdhouse is a new (very small) azalea plant. I had one there which never flowered, so out it went! The new one is called Southern Aurora and is supposed to flower all summer.

Here's a close up of the new clematis. His name is William Keay. Again, I wonder who he's named after...? But he is very striking with a dark bar down the middle of each (huge) petal and a fluffy centre.

On the right, we have the pom pom flowers of the snowball viburnum. I bought this from the clearance bin last year, and was quite pleased to find self sown aquilegias also in the pot. I was hoping for a mix of colours and at first was quite disappointed that they were all white. However, when the snowballs opened up I found I had some white balls and some white stars all intermingling, and now I think it couldn't have worked better if I had planned it!

I have more to show you as the front garden has been my ongoing project for the past few months, but that's a post for another day. I'll leave you today with this last picture of Mrs G, glowing like a young maiden in the golden hour sunshine.