Getting the garden ready for Spring

Last week we enjoyed some lovely weather, and today is officially the first day of Spring! It's a bit chilly and grey here today, but after the warmth of last week I was inspired to get out in the garden. I'm not much of a gardener and fortunately our garden is quite low maintenance - we don't have any shrubs that need cutting back and there's only one hedge out the front that needs a trim from time to time.

We do have quite a lot of paving slabs out the front and at the back and I'd been thinking for a while that they were starting to look a bit grubby, we've been living here for five years and never cleaned them. I remembered that my parents had a pressure washer and so I asked them if I could borrow it, and I was amazed at the difference! Here's the first area that I cleaned, the front path. I honestly thought that the paving slabs were grey, I had no idea that they were yellow underneath! It did a beautiful job of cleaning them.

I've not finished everywhere yet, and the back garden is proving a lot tricker as there is some stubborn black lichen that I can't remove. I've given it a good go though and it's made a massive difference, I can't believe how dirty it had become. All the paving slabs have turned out to be yellow! I'm reluctant to use any sort of chemical cleaner as I don't want to damage the slabs so we'll have to live with the bits that I can't get rid of, but I'm definitely going to be doing much more regular cleaning!

We have gravel all over the place in the garden, a wide border at the front of the house and then smaller ones all the way around the paths in the back garden. It gets full of weeds so I've been pulling them out and tidying up a bit - some of the areas had become a bit of a dumping ground for shells, cuttlefish, pine cones, and other bits and pieces that the children have gathered on nature walks and haven't been allowed to bring in the house. There have also been lots of weeds to pull up between the patio slabs, a job that I hate and really should keep more on top of.

My Dad has given our vegetable patch a good weed and dug in some manure for us so it's all ready for planting. I usually manage quite well with tomatoes, and last year we managed to grow two lovely pumpkins. Over the Easter holidays in a few weeks I'll take the children down to the garden centre and we can make a start on planting some seeds.

Our front garden has lots of daffodils already which is lovely, it's great that they just appear each Spring without me having to do anything! We only have a couple of small flower beds which need weeding and then I'll buy some bedding plants to put in them, I'm not very adventurous but we had some petunias once in all different colours that were really pretty so I might try those again.

I hope it's not too long before we have some proper sunshine and it's time to get out the garden furniture and the barbecue!