I've been working so hard in the garden that there never seems to be any time to write about it afterwards (and sometimes not much to say!). However, I couldn't let the flowering of our 18-month-old year Rosa bansksiae 'Lutea' go without a mention. It is planted in a warm spot at the base of the old tower on our top terrace. Now that it's in flower, I feel I am welcoming an old friend back into my life. Below are pictures of my furry box (still unclipped due to box blight fears), with the rose in the background starting to feel at home on its wall. 
The main gardening achievement of the last ten days has been finishing planting up the Long Border (and keeping it watered during our scorching April weather - 29 days now without decent rain!). To be honest it's more of a nursery bed than a finished, planned border. Everything that I've been propagating from Hardy Plant Society seed and from cuttings over the last three years has been dotted around it to cover as much soil as I can. There are numerous weigelas, philadelphus, buddleia and seed-raised Angelica sylvestris to cover the bank, as well as lilacs 'Charles Joly' (a water-vole survivor) and 'Madame Lemoine'. Many of the small shrubs from cuttings will go down to the bottom of the garden in time when they've bulked up sufficiently.I can't get decent rigid seed trays here, and so I've started using polystyrene fish boxes from our friendly local supermarket. They are a good substitute and last several seasons. I planted out fish boxes full of Nepeta nervosa, Nepeta subsessilis, Salvia x superba, Asphodeline lutea, Stipa gigantea, Festuca amysthestina, all from spring 2012 sowings. Along the edge of what will be the wilder side of the winter garden, where I can keep my eye on them, I've planted a few cultivars that are more special and of which I could only afford to buy one small plant: Aster x frikartii 'Monch', Helenium autumnale 'Moerheim Beauty', Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum'. These, like the yellow Banksian rose, are all are old friends from previous gardens that I'm delighted to finally grow again. There was also a grass addition, new to me although I've always been fond of Miscanthus - M. sinensis 'Morning Light' looks to be a wonderfully soft, silvery addition.
Below are pictures of what the border looked like when I'd finished (not much different, to be honest, but it was wonderful to get the little souls out of their various pots and fish boxes!)
I didn't want to let the last fling of the tulips go unrecorded. Above are yellow 'Westpoint' and 'White Triumphator' up in the Mirror Garden. The color and shape of the two together are everything I ever wanted from a tulip. 
The Rose Walk tulips ('China Pink', 'Queen of the Night' and 'Sorbet') have been lovely with the bronze fennel - what a relief, as the fennel was one of the first things that the water voles devoured. I recently read that the voles are having a serious impact on the wild Narcissus poeticus population in the Massif Central, which are traditionally picked to provide material for the perfume industry in Grasse. Funny that, as I was advised that the beasties don't like narcissus at all and you can plant daffodils to 'ring fence' precious plants. 
Here is a tulip that was planted as purple 'Attila' (the real 'Attila' is muscling in at the bottom of the photo) Not 'Attila' obviously, but it could be one of those color breaks caused by Tulip Breaking Virus - probably in another cultivar whose bulbs were mixed up with my 'Attila' accidentally. They made Dutch speculators a lot of money in the 17th century, but I don't think mine (which also has two flowers on the stem) will win any prizes or gain me any extra cash. Still, it was quite a pretty surprise. 
