For many Easter weekend is the first big effort in the garden, the clearing away of last season to make way for new planting and maybe the time when the first construction and landscaping project is completed. Easter is early this year and if your garden weather has been anything like mine the ground is far too cold for any serious planting.

I started my clean up a few weeks ago as mentioned in a previous article.A few good emails came in suggesting that as a self confessed lover of garden wildlife was I clearing garden debris too soon. Firstly I am lucky in that I work from home and am able to either walk around the garden each day or to see things happening through the windows. For example I watched the goldfinch work their way through the seed heads on last years perennials and did not cut them back until I was fairly sure all the food was gone.These little beauties are now devouring my Niger seed at a rapid rate of knots! Also the dead stems are left on one side and later shaken to remove as many ladybirds etc before being put on the compost heap. I want to keep safe as many of the garden helpers that I encouraged into the garden last year; after all they are my good friends.

It is not just the insects and birds that we have to look out for. Tidying a heart’s tongue fern I found a large toad sleeping and then in some grasses were two large frogs. There are already some bumblebees around and the birds are getting very territorial. Yes the garden is alive but not all is well.

The Easter clean up has revealed that I have lost three Hebes this winter,two very large ones that have left significant holes. The other Hebe was about half their size but I have also lost a large potentilla. My first reaction naturally was anger and disappointment but this is the reality of gardening and Mother Nature. As in all areas of life there are no guarantees and nothing lasts for ever. Once the frustration passed I could look uponit as an opportunity. Two of the large shrubs have gone from one area so my brain is now in gear and the garden planning has begun.

The tomatoes are really coming on well. My perennial lobelia and gaillardia are pricked and annuals sown such as cosmos (through in just a few days).The gaillardia seed have produced 90 seedlings. What will I do with 90 perennial gaillardias I hear you ask? Firstly I suspect that there will be one or two casualties along the way to maturity. Secondly as previously mentioned I have had a few winter casualties and so the is more garden than expected to fill and thirdly I will be swapping with friends and giving residue to family. One friend already has a gooseberry bush potted up for me and I have given him some alpine strawberry plants.

The milder winters of recent years have meant that we have had blossom on the crab apples as early as January but not this year, it is only just opening. Again in the past few years snowdrops have come and gone, followed by crocuses which in turn were followed by daffodils. This year the snowdrops,crocus and daffodils were open together.

Continuing on with my recent pictures of birds taken in my garden I am including one of a long-tailed tit. Just come off the fatball and looking suitably full of goodness. With tails longer than their body, no neck and those tiny black eyes they are a joy to welcome into the garden. They have been spotted collecting nesting material as has a blackbird hen. Maybe it is spring after all!

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