This month our garden has carried on from April when it woke up, but it’s changed quite dramatically too. The tulips are gone, and the alliums have come and are starting to fade. The colour palette has changed from the spring yellow and blues to include more pinks and purples, and more plants are preparing to flower - the hydrangeas and the sweet peas are readying themselves, and if the past two months are anything to go by they’ll be planning to put on quite a show.
But back to May.
The month started gloomily, and I think here in the UK we were wondering if the sun would return in time for summer. It has, but it’s taken a while for it to get here, and now we’re not that far into June the forecast is for temperatures in the very high twenties - so quite a change!
The laburnum though flowered against the gloomy skies, and then a week or so later against much bluer skies. I was pleased to see this one return, as it was a tree we had cut last summer and up until recently hadn’t shown much sign of wanting to do anything much. They’re great trees, though I think they are short changed alongside the more instagram-worthy wisterias, but they do look better against a blue sky, don’t they?
The acer unfurled all its leaves and then some - it grew, and grew, making a bid for the centre of the garden until I took my secateurs to it and gave it some ‘guidance’ on how I wanted it to grow. Since then it’s behaved itself and I love the colour that it brings to the patio.
This year ‘No Mow May’ was much more in mainstream media, and MOH left the lawn for as long as he could. We lasted well into the third week of the month, but with good reason that was it for us. Our ‘No Mow May’ meant a lot more work, as the dandelion flowers changed to dandelion clocks, which were scattered by the wind.
Our challenge was to prevent them spreading too widely, or else we’d have a dandelion lawn quite quickly - and this became a mammoth task. It was great to see the bees on the dandelion flowers, but there were just too many clocks to manage - we’d regularly fill a trug with them, and so for us it was right to mow again, as picking the dandelion clocks meant we weren’t doing other gardening jobs. That said it was great to see the lawn a bit more natural and it’s something we’d do again.
The violas from the winter bedding continued to flower, and then last year’s summer bedding came back for a return display - they’re both still going strong, so I’m leaving them to do their thing.
The mock orange is now covered with new growth, and while I’m not sure we’ll get any flowers this year as it was cut back quite severely last year, I’m pleased to see it come back with such vigour. Sometimes cutting things back really helps the plant, and it definitely helps the light levels in our narrow, tree-filled garden.
The potted olive tree also has new growth, and a lot more light. Its pot is just by the mock orange so it too has benefitted from the work last year. It’s amazing how this tree has come on, we’ve had it many years and it was a free sample from a Gardeners’ World magazine probably in the mid-2000s.
On the patio the alliums and our Gertrude Jekyll rose have made an appearance - this year the rose seems to be doing the best its ever done, and that’s good to see. The rose is now about twelve years old and is in its second position in the garden as we moved it after a few years as it didn’t seem happy. I’m not sure why it’s happier now where it is, as the soil conditions probably aren’t great, but it does get a fair bit more sun. It’s happier there, and we’re happy about that too as we get to enjoy it from the house and on the patio.
The weigela above is another plant I thought I’d lost last summer, and while the lower branches rotted and have since snapped off, just a single tall stem remains and is flowering. It seems I’m now growing a ‘standard’ version of the plant, which is probably the only one in the country!
My pink jasmine was getting unwieldly in its pot, and so I braved it and cut it back not quite to the soil level but close enough. It too is starting to come back, but it’s given the self-sown everlasting sweet peas a chance to thrive. Again I’m pleased about this as this is one of the pots we’ll be taking with us when we (finally) move (still no real news on that front).
The wild strawberries which have come in from next door are also happily creeping towards the edge of the border and the lawn, and are being persuaded this isn’t a good move for them. Our strawberry plants in troughs and dotted around the garden are also doing well and have small fruits emerging. We’ll see if we manage to get to any of these before our garden wildlife - I’m not really holding out much hope though.
I’d put the redcurrant plant behind the greenhouse last summer as it really was just twigs. I cut it back a bit and thought it would be one for the compost heap at some point, and promptly forgot about it. But plants are resilient things, and while clearing around the greenhouse I noticed all its new leaves, so maybe we’ll be lucky and get fruits again next year - I think it’s just too lush and sappy to do much this year, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.
Throughout the garden there is new growth, I think that’s really the message for my garden this month - I feel like I’ve typed them in many times in this post already - but after a long, cold and wet winter, it really is so good to see.
The geraniums are flowering in their pot, and the potted heuchera is also throwing up flower stems, they’ve yet to open but we don’t often see these, so we’re watching to see what they do.
There’s definitely more pink and purple in the garden now. As well as the plants I’ve shown I also have several clumps of pink flowering oxalis, some tall purple wort-like plants, aquilegias and Canterbury bells. Our camellia is also still trying to flower with the occasional red bud appearing briefly before it remembers itself.
While I said there was no real news on the house front, we are starting to prepare the garden for a move if it were to take place. Thinking about which pots we are taking, and how they and the plants will travel - should we prune them ahead of the move or not. Clearly that’s not so much of an issue for the pots with bedding plants in, or the mint - I think I’ll cut those down to make them easier to move, and so that the plants I don’t want to be damaged can get all the attention.
We’re freeing the garden ornaments we’re taking too, the zinc pots and planters that were on the patio have been moved to the greenhouse, so that the plants can grow back where they were and avoid any unsightly gaps. I also reclaimed my green wooden obelisk from the rear border, where the ivy was trying to claim it as its own.
As you can see the ivy was doing that quite successfully, and the obelisk is looking a little sorry for itself. We’ll still be taking it with us but it’s definitely earmarked as a project for MOH’s workbench when he has space to get this up and working - you’ll be seeing this again at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later!
