Spot the difference

I’d started the day by getting down to trim the lavender back in the courtyard. It is beautiful in the summer, the scent fills the air, and bees love to collect the pollen, but the underneath is getting rather woody and spilling into the courtyard a little too far, so a little haircut is definitely needed.

Spot the difference! There’s certainly plenty of lavender left, that will look gorgeous again in the summer, but I’ve revealed the edging stones beneath it, and also given the grape hyacinths some space to flower. Their little blue heads make a lovely display in spring.

In the afternoon it started to warm up, with beautiful blue sky and sunshine, so I kept going. I decided next on my list was the rose at the back of the house. There’s a bit of work Brian wants to do on the wall here, so to help with his access to this I need to prune the rose back. Brian came to help, as there are some pretty big branches to tidy up. First we got rid of all the dead and damaged branches, then looked at how we could shape it better and provide it more air. This is a beautiful white rose, which is nicely scented, so I really want to encourage lots of flowers. We shall see later in the year how that goes.