The Garden Year: June 2025

For this year’s Garden Year linky I’m continuing to share advice from Songbird Survival about how we can make our gardens the best they can be for birds.

This past month I’ve really been enjoying working, or more accurately pottering, in my garden - though earlier in the month I had a scare when I thought I’d lost a couple of my potted roses and the astrantia, but thankfully moving them to a more sheltered spot and giving them a more regular water has helped them through. One of the roses has even flowered - yay! The other has recovered so much that it’s grown new leaves to replace those it dropped.

My hardy fuchsias were looking very twig-like and so once I thought the frosts had passed I braved it and cut all the dead wood out, but being careful to leave enough of the sticks to support the new growth which up until now had relied on them. It seems to have worked so far…

#ThinkBirds

Songbird Survival suggest that we should aim to include five essentials in our gardens for a wildlife-friendly space, they are:

1. Shelter - this is important for birds and small mammals to escape predators; trees, hedges and shrubs all provide places they can hide.

2. Food - an assortment of flowers and vegetation will attract insects and berry bushes or fruit trees also provide a great source of food.

3. Nesting - nest boxes are a great way to provide safe nesting environments for birds, but also think about planting long grasses or cardoons which supply birds with good nesting materials.

4. Water - provide a space, such a s a shallow bird bath, which is cleaned regularly.

5. Be natural - ditching the pesticides will help wildlife thrive!

Advice, inspiration and places to visit

• RHS advice: jobs to do this month

• Gardeners World advice and inspiration

• National Trust gardens and parks to visit

• English Heritage historic gardens to visit

Leave a link below to share what you’ve been up to in the last month, or add a comment sharing your plans for the upcoming month.

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This May...

Oh dear, I ended last month’s post wondering if this would be the month we started to sort out the garage. In short, it wasn’t! I clearly had good intentions, but then completely forgot about it, so that’s another job that is still on the list for this month.

In other ways though it’s been a busy month. I was back down in London at the start of the month for the press preview of the new Unearthed exhibition at the British Library, and really enjoyed my mooch around the exhibition and the British Library, which I hadn’t visited before despite living in London for most of my life…

MOH joined me later in the day and we had a wander around the British Museum which was very busy, and then headed over to our hotel in Docklands ready for a day at Grand Designs Live the next day. Although we hadn’t really thought this through and booked a restaurant - the German Gymnasium in Kings Cross for dinner. Thankfully though the Elizabeth line made it super easy to get across town, and back again.

INSIDE THE GERMAN GYMNASIUM AT KINGS CROSS

The decor and history of the restaurant was amazing, and it was a popular place. The food was good, but it’s not somewhere I’d rush back to. The reviews online were mixed and I can see why, but it’s somewhere that I’ve wanted to go for a while, so it was good to experience it for myself. The toilets were pretty unusual too, so at some point I’m sure I’ll share some of their decor.

The building was an actual old gymnasium, and a German one at that. It was built by the German Gymnastics Society in 1865 and was home to London’s first indoor Olympic Games in 1866—and then again in 1908, there’s still some hooks used for the equipment in the Grade II listed building’s roof trusses.

We’ve been further afield too, heading to Devon for a few days to visit family and for a day out at the Devon County Show - our first ever any kind of county show. We had a good day there, again in brilliant sunshine, and it is always good to catch up with family. We stopped off at Croome National Trust on the way down and then on the way back again, so I expect I’ll share more of our visit there, as it’s a beautiful place.

Sport and sorts

There’s been cycling extravaganzas for MOH too; he ventured to Stevenage by train with his bike to meet up with friends for a day’s cycling, and then completed one of his mad 100 mile cycling challenges a few days later. The latter in brilliant sunshine and high temperatures, rather him than me.

For me yoga and zumba in the next village have been few and far between, what with bank holidays coinciding with yoga and in the case of zumba, the hall being used for the local elections as well as a clash with a night out in Newark wine tasting and our few days in Devon. But there has been plenty of home yoga and some home zumba sessions. Home yoga was more successful as I easily dipped back into Yoga with Adriene; for zumba I searched and tried several workouts on YouTube to find one where I didn’t stumble over my feet quite so much - the jury’s still out!

But the big sports news for this long-term Crystal Palace supporter is the FA Cup win. It was a nerve wracking match to watch, but they held onto their 1-0 lead and triumphed over Manchester City. For the occasion I’d opted for some of Brewdog’s Wingman to calm my nerves, mostly because the can was yellow with a blue eagle on!

So clearly I’m claiming some of the success for Palace’s first major trophy win. The beer I drank and for the lucky rub I gave my age-old supporter badge, which I have no idea how or when it arrived with me, clearly made all the difference!

Specs and spectators

My regular eye test and contact lens check was due this month, and while all is good the optician confirmed what I knew already, that my current glasses are now further away from my actual prescription and could do with an update. So I’ve chosen, and recently collected new glasses, which I’ll mostly wear about the house and which will come with me on trips in case of emergencies. And I’ll know that if they’re needed then they’re up-to-date enough to cope with the job!

We’ve been to the theatre in Nottingham again, this time to see Henning Wehn, the german comedian and in the smaller Theatre Royal. It was a good evening with plenty of chuckles along the way, which is always good. I still can’t quite get my head around being home usually within 30 minutes or so of stepping out of the theatre.

At the moment we’ve only got one further theatre trip booked, and that’s not until October when we see Divine Comedy - maybe I should do something about that and see what else is on.

My favourite month

May, I think is my favourite month, though I’m probably biased as it’s my birth month. Though it seems that all of a sudden everything has taken off, we’re much busier than we have been, the weather has generally been good, the garden is growing (and growing) and we’ve been out here, there and everywhere.

I’ve picked up my new car (it’s a newer version of the car I already had and it’s fabulous), the large pot we bought at Grand Designs has been delivered - so now I need to find the right sized and right priced olive tree to put in it - and we’ve got our travel bug back. So much so that I’ve been looking through our holiday photos from last year, and even plan to share some of those walks - you can’t rush things, clearly!

But it also seems crazy that with June around the corner we’re close to half way through the year, how did that happen?!

If you want to read my previous monthly updates in my ‘This is’ series you’re very welcome.

Post Comment Love 30 May - 1 June

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

Whilst in Devon the other week we had a day at the Devon County Show - our first time at any county show - and it was great. It was much like the garden or house shows we’ve been to before but with the addition of animals in almost every shape and size - from ferrets to heavy horses and almost everything in between. It was a good day out, and you never know we may even get along to the Nottinghamshire County Show, which is around the same time, next year.

I saw and fell in love with some rusty signs, as MOH calls them. Each had a well known quote from a TV show or movie, and we spent some time identifying most of them before narrowing our favourites down to three, and then leaving with this one.

It’s already up in our garden, and while this may or may not be its final position, I really do love it when a plan comes together. Almost as much as The A Team!

Have a great week.