My poor garden

For today's blog post I really wanted to share some lovely photos of my spring garden, but unfortunately Mother Nature has had other ideas. 

It's been so cold here that I've barely even been out in the garden for the last couple of weeks. The garden furniture has been packed safely away because of the wind, and we've not even been in the hot tub for a few days because the weather has been so miserable.

So the poor garden has become sadly neglected. It's been far too wet to cut the grass or the hedge, and so it's all looking a bit overgrown. The weeds are growing up in the vegetable patch, but I just can't bear to wait for a gap in the rain and sit out there in the cold to give it some attention.

Everything has also suffered really badly from the strong winds that we've been having. My poor marigolds in tin can pots are looking very battered. They were already spindly from being kept inside for too long due to the cold weather, and that made them even more vulnerable to the wind. A couple have snapped completely. Luckily I have some spare plants still indoors that I can use to replace them, and more seeds if necessary to start from scratch. 

It's my poor tomato plants that I'm most worried about. I always do well with tomatoes, I think the climate in this area is very good for them, and I'm always confident that they'll grow well. I have a few in pots to the side which aren't looking too bad, but the ones planted in the middle of the vegetable patch have had their leaves literally blown off and they are also stunted due to the cold. They aren't quite dead, but I'm just hoping that they have it in them to recover!

Fortunately, having replaced most of our fencing over the last couple of years we've not lost any more this time around, so that's something to be thankful for. I'm hoping that all we need is a bit of warmer weather and sunshine to really get things going. The forecast looks good for later in the week, so I'll be charging up the hedge trimmers and pulling on the gardening gloves!