Productive weekend.

It's amazing what a difference a bit of sun and a blue sky makes.

My slightly unkempt and tatty Bamboo becomes positively tropical...

the Clematis Armandii pumps out enough fragrance to stop you in your tracks...

my favourite Snakeshead Fritillaries sway above...

the delicate Epimediums,

and the Primroses glow in the sun everywhere.

But this weekend wasn't just a wandering about, enjoying the sun type weekend - it was a productive weekend and it was the best sort of productive - the type you can really see!

Our parking space at the back of the house always produces a stunning crop of weeds the minute the spring arrives and usually I fight a loosing battle from about Easter. So this year I'm starting early and hoping to put down a membrane and cover it with gravel before the weeds get going again. This is half of the area cleared (and massively pepper dusted - pesky cats!) - sadly the other side is still weed packed. 

That's next weekends job!

So after all that hard work a bit of sitting under the Olive Tree with a cup of tea was called for - I could almost have been in the Med!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and that those mothers amongst you were spoilt rotten. I have a house full of gorgeous Cornish Daffodils - four vases of them, and I had my supper cooked for me and some chocolate for afterwards.

Thank you lovely offspring!

Magnolia time!

It's that time - the Magnolias are covered and bursting forth with amazing blooms. These were seen on just one main road on the walk back from a coffee drinking session.

This is the only time that I am a little wistful about owning a Magnolia Grandiflora which has no sign of floral life on it yet, and when it does it will have a sprinkling of flowers over the whole season and not the gloriously, mad bursting forth that others have now.

See - lovely, glossy green leaves with bronzy undersides - but no flowers, not even a bud...

and then there's this down the road!

I must try to engineer a trip to Glendurgan Gardens here in Cornwall as soon as possible, they have a great collection of Magnolias, but there are so many other places that do too, there's a fantastic choice down here.

Ahhh... Magnolias - another favourite!

Excitement at Daisy!

Last week saw the Daisy duo out on a site visit for a potential new project - a blank canvas for lots of loveliness. This is the bit where we get very over-excited and our heads are full of ideas, plants and schemes - some of them completely impractical or unachievable but all of them brilliant (I may be slightly biased here!).

This is the moment to go completely mad and get all the wild things out there ahead of the 'get real' phase when we actually consider reality, and I love it! We are constantly collecting ideas and love Pinterest as a place to collect visual inspiration, have a look at our boards here.

Anyway so far we've got a fountain, a native bluebell meadow, some mediterranean terracing, a pizza oven and entertaining area, a silver birch glade, summer houses and a vegetable plot! Just trying to jam in a wildlife pond and some rills - no wait, that won't work - it's a sloping site. How very inconsiderate! Hang on, we could have a Chatsworth House-style water Cascade instead...

What's that - what was the client's brief?

Well, almost word for word it was 'we're fairly easy, but lots of colour'.

The sort of brief we love!