If May was the month for fresh new grass (and dandelions) then June has been all about the flowers. Throughout this month we’ve seen a procession of flowers come (and in some cases go) and it’s been glorious to watch. It’s been especially poignant as as we suspected it might be, this was our last month in this garden and it really put on a show for us.
The month started with the froth and flowers of the pyracantha, and ended with the agapanthus starting to pop out. Though the plants are very different, they both start with little white dots of flowers, and there were many on the pyracantha which has spread to cover almost two entire fence panels over the past year or so.
Then came the march of the roses. The pink Gertrude Jekyll’s are always a favourite and this year even more so, they threw up so many more flowers than ever before. The distinct winter that we had is supposed to have made this year a good year for roses, I’d go further and say it’s rebooted a lot of plants.
The white roses against the very blue sky was a view we often had looking up from the patio, and the swathes of deeper pink roses popped over the fence from next door bringing colour to a part of our garden that was later to be filled with jasmine.
The hydrangeas started to bloom, but as you’ll see by the end of the month they’ve lost their greeny-white and become a more creamy-white.
I also set MOH a challenge to upgrade our secateurs, and neither of us realised quite how blunt they’d become. The ones we had came with a spare blade and spring, which we’d shoved in a drawer never to be thought of again, or at least for many years.
After resorting to watching the YouTube video the blades and springs (for the ratchet) are changed, and they are like new. This has been especially good news to a getting increasingly bored me following my Carpal Tunnel op, and I’ve been able to prune and garden (mostly) left-handed.
On the patio the roses were joined by the rich velvety flowers of the clematis, and our best in a long time showing of honeysuckle. It’s like the plants were showing us their best just when we needed it.
And then the sweet peas started. Their delicate pink slippers quite quickly becoming the bright fuchsia flowers - I’m so glad we had another time to see these, they have been such a mainstay of our patio and come back unaided every year. A few years ago I planted some of the seed into a pot with some pink jasmine, and while they’ve grown they’ve never really flowered - most likely due to where they were in the garden. I was so glad I’d done this though, as that pot has come with us to our new house, time will tell if they’ll like their new surroundings.
I mentioned the jasmine, but wow. It starts like this, which does nothing to prepare you for its scent. We have jasmine in several places around the garden, and as the sun warms up the spot it’s easy to see which section will flower next. It has also been amazing this year, and our neighbour said that she always enjoys our jasmine when it flowers, as some has popped through the fence into their garden, which she’s very grateful for!
Just look at how the hydrangeas have come on over the month. Nature really is amazing.
This photo of the agapanthus is about three weeks into the month, and by the end of the month another flower stem had appeared and the buds were breaking out of the tightly packed pointed packages. We had two pots of agapanthus, which we haven’t brought with us as the pots were big and likely to be too unstable, but sadly only one of them survived the winter. By the time I’d given up hope on it springing into life it was too late to even the pots up, even though there’s plenty of capacity to do this.
And these two have been making me smile as the month progressed. As it became clearer that our move date would actually happen I started to gather the pots and ornaments we’d be taking, and had unintentionally placed these as if they were peering out from behind one of the pots like they were curious and anxious about the changes ahead.
I know now, that they needn’t have been!
