Congratulations Castle! I don't 'know' you, but little Lily sounds gorgeous! January babies are great (my DD1 was one) - you can hunker down through the cold weather, and then by the time the spring is springing you are ready to face the world again!
Busy weekend here with DD1's birthday outing to the cinema so only managed about 40 mins in the garden, continuing the cutting back regime and gradually moving further up the garden.
My garden is largish (feels unmanageably so at times!) and was started from scratch when we moved here 10 years ago.
The front is mostly drive, with a steep bank on which I'm trying to encourage comfrey and alkanet, and discourage brambles and field maple
. Then a sort of mini-orchard with 3 apple and 1 pear tree, surrounded by a picket fence. Under the trees was supposed to be wildflowers and grasses with paths mown through, but our 3 chickens are there at present and it's a churned up mess of mud (and was always fairly weedy anyway). Along the side fence is a large honeysuckle and jasmine (two of very few things that were already in the garden when we arrived) and I've put a fig tree into a sun-trap corner by the cars. Directly in front of the house is a little area of slate chippings with small shrubbery (choisia, a pink buddleia, a rose, a variegated leaf thing, and a messy spreading shrub with silvery leaves and little yellow flowers). The wisteria is tucked into the back corner of that. Around the sides of that I have a lavender border and another border which is mostly day-lilies.
At the back I have 2 brick raised beds for herbs & lavenders, then a lot of lawn! I made a rose and lavender border along the side of the patio last summer which is looking okay, although the roses are still small. I have a few things growing against the fence, including a clematis that's got wilt for the last two years running. Not sure if I should just give up and dig it out?? Then I have a low border running along the top of a wall which divides the garden into two levels - more lavenders, cat mint, some alpines, and random things. I had delphiniums in there too until last year when they died, and I have a rose arch which has a very vigorous white climber on one side, and a rather sickly looking Felicia pink rose on the other side (fairly new and replacing another one which wasn't healthy). Towards the top of the garden I have a larger border which isn't very well planned - lots of shrubs like lavetera & buddleia, and hardy geraniums, but also some lovely things like peonies and a couple of lupins. On the opposite side from the large border I have 3 more apple trees and 1 plum, and beyond that was supposed to be the veg patch, but it's rather neglected (that's DH's area, but he's even shorter on time that I am!) so I am thinking of grassing it over and just putting in one raised bed (there were 4 sections to the veg patch, divided by bricks). At the very top we have a weedy wildflower area and then two large sycamore trees which rather leech the nutrients out of the soil.
Phew - I feel exhausted just writing that! I think my main problem is that because I wanted to plan and fill it quickly when we moved in and there was nothing, it wasn't very well planned, particularly the large border. It was mostly filled with things from my mother, or from our gardening club where people get rid of their surplus plants for 20p! Now that the DC are older and in theory I have more time, I'd like to plan it a bit better and have less lawn, and some more exciting things like a pond. I'm torn between keeping the open view (there is a field behind the garden) and adding more 'interest' by breaking it up a bit. But then I never have time to even do all the basic maintenance so when I am going to get the time to be more strategic, who knows. I dream of a week off work, at home, completely by myself (or maybe with DH too to do the heavy work
) just to garden every day! There is an area behind the shed which we've never done anything with because we can't see it from the house, but is probably a 5m x 5m patch of messy brambles and junk.... Sigh!
I have tried to upload a picture from last year's late spring when it was looking okay (late spring is an easy time to have a nice garden - another problem I have is not enough summer colour - I seem to kill rudbekia!)