Exposing myself

Up until now I feel like I've been a bit coy. I've tried to take nice photos of pretty things in my garden that I'm proud of and want to share. But this weekend I made a decision. I'm going to start a month by month series of photos showing my entire garden - not just my favourite beds, but the tricky spots which often look a bit crap.

I'm doing this for two reasons. Firstly, I feel like the chief joy of gardening is watching your garden change over the year. I can happily stare at our garden for hours on end because every time I look at it something is different. But although you can see the changes every day, plants work on a different timescale to us humans, and you can only really appreciate the big changes by taking a slightly longer view.

Secondly, I feel like if you are interested in gardens you're constantly assaulted by images of perfection that you have no hope of ever achieving at home. So I'm hoping (in a very minor way as I think most of the hits on my page are from my Mum) to redress the balance of all those stunning weed-free show gardens on TV, and give you a picture of a real, and far from perfect, garden.

The first pictures are already up - just follow the link to the right (I've put the link in twice to be extra encouraging). But  to give you a taster, here's a sneak peek from last year (yes I've been obsessively photographing my garden for a while now).

The veg patch in early April

The same view in late June