My French garden is a special place to me – a blank canvas in winter ready for the glorious colour that spring brings. It’s small but peaceful. French gardens are a by design a little “sauvage” and I am happy with that look. There’s something quite nice about bursting borders with a brilliant mix of edible and floral plants. Things looking not too done and sharing your special place with busy birds and insects. I am a massive fan of wildflowers because they create a lovely wild look and usually are full of surprises too. Even better if you can harvest some for your parfait jars. The fresh cut flowers and sorrel look so lovely and rustic in a French kitchen too.

I’m really not green fingered at all, but creating a French style garden is such a pleasure as it is so simple to achieve a lovely, relaxed look. I’ve got some delicious tender stem broccoli living next door to some holly hocks at the moment and my herbs are surrounded by pansies. They seem to live happily side by side and I like the different textures and colours the mix gives.

 

Here are some gorgeous spring blooms I cut last year. Amazing how pretty purples look with a simple bit of ticking fabric.

So, I’m pretty happy that my nearly three year old boy seems to be enjoying the outdoors too. I put up a little bird feeder in winter and he loves watching the Robin or Gorge Rouge as he is known in France, pop in and eat his breakfast until the blue tits chase him away. It’s the simple things in life you know! Ours is a bit old but I saw this one on Marks and Spencer’s website in their gardening collection and thought how stylish it would look in a courtyard garden. I love the cute little peep hole!

I’ve always adored vintage style roses and this one smells so gorgeous, I can’t wait for it to come to life again soon. In the meantime I have been planting out our pots with various bulbs, including lilies and irises as the insects seem to love those. This year I’m sticking to whites and purples a girl has to keep it colour coordinated with the grey paintwork!

When we first moved into our house I was forever ringing the pest control man to get rid of my bees. He doesn’t kill them, just sets up a honey trap and takes them away. Now, I only have a few but they do seem to gather by the front door so I’m absolutely definitely going to get this little insect hotel for Woody to look at the bugs in the garden. How cool is this for under £30?

 

And, what little girl wouldn’t love one of these? This pretty butterfly house is a great idea and so pretty. We’ll be making the most of the spring planting and I’ll enjoy my little helper doing it with me. It’s just so nice to get the tiddlers outdoors and exploring in their wellingtons this time of year.

Got a lovely garden with time for the birds and the bees too?