Only two days ago I was busy getting excited about my first sweet pea of summer – now I can hardly keep up with the non-stop picking. (Although what’s not to love about plants that produce more pretty scented flowers the more of them you pick? It’s the garden equivalent of a never ending chocolate bar.) Certain colours seem to be blooming more quickly – or at least in greater numbers – than others: so I’ve had lots of dark cherry red, cream and light pink flowers already, but only a smattering of fuschia, lilac and purple and a very few of my favourite raspberry ripple flowers. Luckily, the pinks are fighting back …

Tomorrow this little lot will be finding their way into water, joining the three other bunches I’ve had already (sometimes I think the flowers open the moment I turn my back). But I’ve yet to discover a way of displaying them really stylishly – I’ve been resorting to jam jars and, more shamefully, a pair of little glasses we got with a bottle of Raki in Turkey which have their boozy origins written on the front – you can just about see the logo here. Classy.

What I really need is a set of beautiful tea glasses or perhaps a proper sweetpea vase, although I wonder if that is perhaps a little grown-up. I’m not yet at the stage where I own different crystal vases for different flowers, well not unless someone else is buying them for me. I want to spend my cash on plants, not things to stuff them into. And in any case, that big jar of pickles in the fridge looks like it will be finished and ready to be utilised soon …

The first sweet pea of summer

There is nothing I love more than a sweet pea. They are the ultimate gardening treat: in relatively few weeks you see them transformed from seed to seedling, from young leggy plant to frenzied climber, from scrambling mess to fragrant, blooming wonders. I love that the process can be so simple, and the result so satisfyingly lovely – like the first asparagus or sweet strawberries of the season, the first sweet pea makes my heart glad. And when that first sweet pea flower is also a special raspberry-ripple one? Clearly there is some kind of gardening karma at work. That back-breaking digging was worth it …

Full on flowers: the front cottage garden bed

Six weeks of sun, water and weekend weeding, and finally I have something that looks more like a garden and less like some dirt with a couple of bits of green in it. The surprising amount of sun this patch gets – it’s west facing, but I didn’t expect it to be absolutely baking all afternoon – means some plants have thrived at the expense of others (those pink peliagorums in the background for instance were, only four weeks ago, two spindly little plants). The salvia May Night is doing brilliantly, the lupins are just about recovered from the snail onslaught that nearly saw them off a fortnight ago, and the Beard Tongue  (Penstemon Andenken an Friedrich Hahn) is spreading like crazy. The bright pink spike of small flowers above is the first among many that are forming on its folliage. I love the way it echoes the foxglove that sits behind it, although sadly I can’t claim any credit: it’s a happy coincidence.

I’m still fighting against the weeds – taking a rather rubbish lawn out means that we have serious weed problems; you can see some giant dandelion leaves next to the calendula at the front – but as plants clump and spread, the bed is beginning to take care of itself. The perennial cornflower for instance arrived as a little cutting from a friend and has now firmly established itself. Perhaps too firmly. I’ll be keeping an eye on it – although for now, I’m just enjoying it.

Revived: the front garden

There are jobs still to do, of course, and the plants need to do some super-sized growing – although a few weeks of sun and plenty of watering and they should be on their way. But at last the front of the house is beginning to resemble more of a garden and less of a prickly, thorny, horror. Once the jasmine and clematis have scrambled busily up the obelisks, the hollyhocks and delphiniums are up and screening the meters, and the rose has wriggled its way across the trellis, things should be starting to take shape. The back bed will be packed with height from lupins, foxgloves, echinacea and phlox; the chickenwire fence obscured by honeysuckle – two new plants just beginning to entangle themselves in it, and a third old, woody plant near to the house, which has only just revealed its identity. The fragrance should be astonishing (or possibly even overwhelming. If that’s possible).

Just one area needs immediate attention: the right-hand corner, beyond the marguerite and the sage and out of shot (for that reason) here. It’s a decent-sized patch of bed, although part-shaded thanks to a large rose and big old evergreen bush that overhang it. I’m hoping that hardy fuschias might thrive in its dappled shade, and in the coldframe Swan River Daisies  just hatching from their seeds and also destined for this patch.

Certainly I’m not going to be short of plants to fill in any gaps. This morning brought a trip to Anthony’s old school, which has a working farm – with lambs, tiny squealing piglets chasing their mum round an orchard, chickens and cattle. And of course nurseries. We’ve come away with an array of fuschias, scented geraniums, verbena, trays of petunias and surfinas to stick in pots on the patio, young tomato plants (ditto) fennel, and a couple of unidentified little perrenials that will snuggle in nicely in the front bed along with an incredibly fragranced dianthus. But I’ll need to get digging out new beds for the rest: soon I’ll have to start tackling the back garden.

Our lilac tree coming into full bloom

More treats from the abandoned back garden – this time it’s a lilac that’s bursting into bloom and filling the garden with colour. It nestles between the willow tree and a large and yet unidentified bush, throwing up great plumes of petals into the sky and out above the lawn. It looks in surprisingly good nick, every bough smothered with buds unfurling into flower. And out the front there’s some purple action too …

Lavender and sweetpeas: fragrance down the path

The final bit of grass in the front garden has now all been dug out  and in its place is a new bed of lavender and sweetpeas, just waiting to release summer fragrance as you walk down the path. It looks a bit bare now, but as the sweetpeas climb up and over their hoops they should add height: great muddles of colour all summer and hopefully some scent too. Half the sweetpeas came from the garden centre – purple, cream, pink and crimson – and half from my colleague Janette and her garden in Surrey; in the cold frame outside some new seedlings are just springing up, ready to be added to the garden as they become ready.

The lavender bushes are Lavandula angustifolia ‘Melissa Lilac’, chosen because they shouldn’t get too big – and also for their larger than average flowers in the summer. I’m hoping that bees will swarm to them. I was tempted by French lavenders (I love their big heads topped off with a pair of petals), but our soil tends towards the heavy, and drainage looked like being a problem. The gravel to one side of the bed, since topped up to a better level, should help a little with that – but it’s primary function is to allow access in and out of the car. Without it plants would get knocked every time the passenger door was opened, and my clod-feet would have trampled all over the bed. It’s not wildly pretty, and breaks with my hopes of beds that spilled out onto paving, but sometimes practicality wins through.

Cherry Blossom – and fruit?

Finding an ornamental cherry tree bursting into blossom was jolly enough. But now spring brings a fresh surprise: a great, cloud of heavy blooms falling onto the lawn from one of the trees on the boundary with our neighbours’ garden. (Next door seem to have cut the branches down on their side. Madness).

Cherry blossom: spring's prettiest present

The sky is filled with pink fluff, and the lawn is too, and I’m wondering – might we even get fruit? Already I’ve discovered a plum tree, what seems like a small apple tree, and an odd little patch of rhurbarb just springing up out of the lawn. But cherries? Wouldn’t that be wonderful …

Taking shape: new plants in the front bed

It’s May Bank Holiday. What better than a spot of torrential rain, the odd spatter of hail, and biting winds to make that precious extra day off work feel special? But we have persevered through the weather and gardened all weekend – with spring finally arrived and the blossom in full bloom, just stepping out into such an unloved front garden every morning was leaving me feeling guilty for the rest of the day.

Not that it was completely unloved of course: I’d already dug out one lawn and planted an array of tiny plug plants, but the effect was rather closer to ploughed field than front garden. Those plants have done a decent bit of growing since – the campanulas, in particular, sprouting up over the past couple of weeks – but a cottage garden border should be lush, overflowing with plants and overwhelming with fragrance. And we were nowhere near that point yet.

Now we’re at least a step closer. Our first wave of planting has been joined by a second – the campanula, gypsophila, violas and dwarf lavenders now jostling with taller cottage favourites and some new smaller plants to fill out the front of the bed. Here you can see a large purple and white daisy already in flower (well, I’ve got to have some joy as I step out the door in the morning); two hot pink Penstemon ‘Andenken an Friedrich Hahn’, or Beard Tongue; a good clump of the compact shasta daisy Leucanthemum x superbum ‘Snowcap’ ;  white and rose pink lupins beginning to shoot upwards; a handsome great fuschia-pink digitalis; and a marguerite speckled with the first of its white daisy flowers. In amongst the flowers you’ll find sage, thyme and rosemary, with two kinds of honeysuckle already scrambling up the ugly fence. For late spring flowers there’s a Lonicera Japonica Scentsation I couldn’t resist at the garden centre on Saturday, and for summer fragrance a Lonicera Japonica Hall’s Prolific. Both should give interest in the autumn too – the former with red berries, the latter with black.

front bed: obelisk and stepping stones

Under the window, you’ll see that the trellis for our new rose – an old English climber, Gertrude Jekyll (which you might just be able to make out) – has gone up. Six weeks ago, the rose arrived from David Austin as a ball of roots with a little stub of stem out the top; I’ll admit I was sceptical as to whether I’d be able to get it to grow. Now strong, glossy shoots are bursting upwards, and I’m already looking forward to its blooms in a few months time – and their old-rose fragrance. By planting it under the window, I’m hoping I’ll get wafts of fragrance when they’re open in summer.

Also planted for fragrance is a summer jasmine, wound round a wicker obelisk to provide a good bit of height at the back of the border, and a gust of sweet perfume as you leave or enter the house. It’s only been in for a couple of weeks, but already it’s sending out shoots and looking pretty settled. So settled, in fact, that it inspired me to buy a (slightly different) obelisk for the clematis (a Jackmanii Superba) which was looking a bit unhappy winding against the fence.

A couple of hollyhocks (Alcea Rosa) and a border phlox (Phlox paniculata ‘Mount Fuji’) will be on guard during the summer to prevent its roots getting too warm, balanced by a pair of delphiniums in light purple and white on the near side of the border . In front of them sits an Echinacea Purpurea – the purpley/pink coneflower that make my heart sing in late summer when other herbaceaous perennials are past their best – and Salvia × sylvestris ‘Mainacht’, my wildcard plant. I like the idea – big spikes of indigo flowers in summer and a fragrant foliage – but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen it before (or noticed it, at any rate).

So you see now why it was worth working through the rain (and the hail). For a  week I’ve been dying to get the beds weeded and planted after my very good friend Nick presented me with some late birthday swag (lupins, delphiuniums and digitalis – what a gift eh?). Seeing everything in and busy establishing itself was just the back-to-work feeling I was hoping for. Oh, and getting those stepping stones laid means nothing in the far corner will be neglected any more (Clematis, I am sorry for earlier).

Getting ready to bloom …

Spring is so lovely: we had no idea if this tree was even alive – and then! Big pregnant buds appeared …

… spring has sprung

Before a frothy, lacey canopy of pink burst into life, littering our threadbare lawn with its petals – and filling the bright April sky with colour

I know: it doesn’t look much different – and we still need to dig out the grass down the side of the parking space. But in this deep bed are a plethora of cottage garden perennials that I’m hoping will  grow and spread, turning the front of the house into a mass of blue, white, pink and purple planting that spills lushly onto the path, and frames the windows.

At the front of the bed are pink hardy geramiums alongside carpet-forming blue campanula; the row behind has dwarf English lavenders to perfume the summer air as I trot home from work at night. Beyond the short little lavenders come taller white and blue campanulas, frothy gyp, and – most exciting of all – a mystery blue plant, courtesy of a friend at work

In the shady corner is a clematis jackmanii superba – ready to scramble over our ugly chickenwire fence with its luscious deep purple flowers. It’s feet are kept shady (and that ugly gas meter is hidden) by pink hollyhocks planted close to it – flowing vertically from it are an as yet unidentified small shrub, a leggy yellow rose that after a hard prune will hopefully perform better, a new honeysuckle, and my latest purchase – the crimson old-English rose Falstaff, recently arrived as a bare root plant from David Austen. I know, it’s red rather breaks with the garden’s colour scheme. But look at it! How sumptuous does it look? And how amazing will it smell?

My other David Austen purchase is a climbing Gertrude Jekyll – which will scramble on some trellis under the window; providing both colour on the front of the house, and fragrance when we open the windows in summer (not long now). Just in front of it I’ve planted a handful of blue agpanthus , which should provide height without too much bulk.

And my final two bits of planting so far: a fragrant jasmine grown next to the front door over a wicker pyramid – I can hardly wait for it to come into flower – and an interesting dark purple hydrangea. Mmmm hydrangeas. The queen of the cottage garden. Or to me at least. Those huge, blowsy flowerheads get me everytime.

So we’ve been busy. Too busy in fact to post – most of the plants went in about three weeks ago, the roses a week later, and the honeysuckle and jasmine came last weekend, thanks to our brilliant local garden centre. Everything is coming along nicely – more updates as they grow bigger … and we tackle that last strip of turf.

Not very pretty. A gas meter without a front, a side border that is one great thorn, and a pointless bit of grass. hmm

This weekend I started tackling the front garden. Not the most obvious place to start perhaps, given the great, unkempt expanse at the rear of the house crying out for a fork, spade and quite possibly a chainsaw. But while the evenings stay dark and dank, any work in the back garden remains basically invisible during the week – and when I trail home from the office in the evening and step out the door in the morning, I want to be able to make out a garden beginning to take shape; to smell the newly-dug earth and glimpse small green shoots poking through it.

There are, of course, other more practical reasons too. Most pressingly, the front of our house – even if you were being kind – could not at the moment be described as having kerb appeal: our 1980s windows have ugly aluminium frames; our front door could serve as a tutorial in bad taste with its peeling orange varnish and central glass panel. When the house was built, 101 years ago, as part of the world’s first Garden City (more of which later) the windows would have been divided with glazing bars to give a cottagey feel, the front door would have had been half-glazed with nine panes above the letterbox, and the house’s render would have been bright and white, rather than decidedly flakey. Give us a couple of years and the restoration will be complete – but for now, hopefully lush planting can help to soften the exterior and hide its imperfections.

So here’s what we have to begin with. If you stand on the doorstep with your back to the house, on your right is our concrete garden path leading down to the street; running alongside it,  in front of you, is a bed about one stride wide that’s currently grassed over. On the very far left is a bed with two rose trees, what I think (hope) is a clematis, and a great deal of scratchy bush and prickly bramble as if the previous owners had been very cross and planted a border to match their mood. And in the middle section of our garden there’s a block-paved parking space and, between the parking space and the window, a patch of lawn.

I have never, ever, understood the British love of tiny front-garden lawns. To me, grass is there as a lush green carpet on which to laze in the summer, and if you’re not going to sit on it, you ought to get rid of it. And so began a Sunday of, what I can quite confidently say, was the most extreme gardening I’ve ever done – imagine hand-ploughing a quagmire untouched for a decade or more, and you’re close to understanding how broken my body was on Monday morning.

I started by dividing and removing the turf to reveal the soil below. The good news? We have a lot of worms in our garden. The bad news? Our soil appears to be really heavy clay – although I’m hoping that 10 years plus of non-cultivation goes at least some way to explaining how compacted it is. Then came the back-breaking forking and digging, the hoeing to try and break up some of the huge clumps, the compost and more digging, and finally the raking. Seven hours of back-breaking work later I had – well, what was effectively a small ploughed field in front of my house. And – more excitingly – a place where the first new plant in our garden could put down roots…