Lillies and Lavender

I bought some lily bulbs a couple of weeks ago, but delayed planting them in the ground due to the continuous cold and rain. Today, after a morning's rain, it was quite mild (10 degrees C) so I set out to dig deep holes to plant the lilies. The bed (on the left hand side from the back door) is slightly raised, and the soil quite sandy, so quite easy to dig even after the rain. I planted four Lilium Henryi, which are tall orange tiger lilies, with reflexed petals, in front of the honeysuckle at the back of the border. They looked like this:

I planted three lilium regale next to the box hedge.

One of the problems with my overgrown lavender is that I have to keep stepping over it to get on the flower bed. I noticed today that, although there were signs of growth, the woody branches were very brittle and some had snapped off. So I made my mind up, finally, to remove the hedge, which had been there for five years - pretty good for lavender. It didn't take long, and the plants didn't seem to have very big roots, which was a relief, since they were inter-planted with allium bulbs which I didn't want to disturb.

The garden went from this:

to this:

The garden looks a lot wider now. When the soil and other debris which had collected under the lavender has dried off, I will be able to tidy the path up and it will look a lot better.

I may replace the lavender hedge, using fewer plants planted further apart, and pruning them much harder to stop them getting woody. But it will be a while before I do this, so there is time to come up with other ideas.

And finally - the double hellebores in pots are beginning to shine - here are some more pictures