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| The front garden was wonderfully green thanks to all the rain, although the front lawn was so water-logged that it was out of bounds. |
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| The marquee in the back garden looked as if it was meant to be there. |
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| The new front gate and the new path saw more traffic than they will see in the whole of the rest of the year. |
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| And the patio was perfect for all the guests to sit down for the ceremony. |
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| The bride and the father-of-the-bride stepped out of the new French windows and walked down the "aisle". |
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| The parterre was a gorgeous backdrop for the ceremony. |
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| Before going back to the back for a group photo and the traditional throwing of the bouquet (it's at the top of the next photo!). |
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| The parterre gave many photo great opportunities. |
As we approach the home straight, the recent wind and rain have left the garden battered but surviving. The lawn still squelches as you walk on it and there are puddles around the edge of some flowerbeds, but most of the plants are doing their best to put on a good show. All we need are a few weeks of warm dry weather. Not much to ask in June and July, surely?
We have an amber warning for disruption caused by heavy rain in the South East today. This is getting silly. 
Look what the rain has done to the rhoddies. A few days ago they were still looking magnificant and now most of the flowers are on the ground. Other casualties of the weather, so far, include one gunera leaf, one lupin stem and countless small oak branches.
Strong winds and heavy rain are forecast for tonight. Is this really June? I've been out staking all the tall plants to try and help them stay upright. Doesn't look very beautiful, but face down in the mud is even worse.
Happy Jubilee Weekend! The rain that failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the participants in yesterday's Diamond Jubilee river pageant wrecked the new petunias in the pots. Looks like there's more flowers to come though.
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| Now |
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| Then |
We realised in a moment of panic recently that the maintenance of the garden was taking longer than the time available and that we had no time left to get anything creative done in it (let alone work, eat and sleep). Time to call in the experts. Meadowbank Garden Services started today and made an excellent job of mowing and weeding. 
By the way, this is what the area used to look like (from the opposite direction) ...
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| Before |
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| After |
Yesterday, for the first day since records began (6 April) it didn't rain. Hopefully we can now mow the meadow that is the lawn and weed the beds.
Just in case you are thinking we have nothing but tulips in the garden, here's a photo of a lovely azalea doing its best despite the rain.
Look at this amazing tulip. It really is one stem with two flower heads. Never seen that before.
This isn't just a puddle at the side of the rose bed - it's a stream! I can't remember rain like this - we've had downpours day after day for at least three weeks. In fact - since they announced the hosepipe ban! 
Frustratingly little time in the garden at the moment, thanks to the frequent April showers. I think it's rained every day since the hosepipe ban was imposed. 
This is a redundant piece of kit for the foreseeable future thanks to Thames Water's hosepipe ban which came into effect yesterday. I think there should be an exemption for people with weddings in their gardens this Summer. In the absence of that change of policy, I guess I will get some useful exercise walking backwards and forwards with watering cans.
... 150L of solid clay out and eventually I had some soil that I could plant the sweet peas in. The canes came from our overgrown bamboo patch - how self-sufficient is that? I'll post another picture of this when it is a riot of colour (hopefully!).
I've heard of gardening on heavy clay, but this is ridiculous! I was digging over a new bit of ground to make a sweet pea bed and every spadeful brought up clods like this. The idea is to grow sweet peas for the tables, but we could make pots to put the sweet peas in as well! Or maybe that's not quite the look the bride has in mind.
If it takes one woman two hours to tidy the box border of the parterre bed, how long does it take her husband to recover after he observes that the box hedge needs a bit of tidying?
Not much more snow, but it's been freezing for over a week now. We are forecast to be one of the coldest places in the country at lunchtime today, -3°C in the middle of the day! Brrrrrh.
After a freezing cold week, around 3 inches of snow fell last night. Not enough for serious sledging, but enough to make everything look pretty. Not sure the poor camelia enjoyed it though!
Put up a new arch today and managed to tie on some of the existing foliage. Now just need to find time to tidy up the beds and rake up the leaves!
