May has arrived

It’s only May and it feels like the garden is slipping through my fingers. It feels like everything is happening at the same time and this is the time when I have the least time for my own garden. Oh well. I do love its wild look and so do all the insects or bees and the hedgehog too. So here’s what’s around the garden at the moment, on this first weekend of the month.

I love honesty. I’m not soo keen on it after it has flowered but I love it while it’s flowering. Very early froth around the garden. I sowed these from seed (from Chiltern Seeds) a couple of years ago, especially for this spot, it used to be all dahlias but I moved the dahlias but the honesty stayed. All white here but I have purple ones (and Chedglow too) at different parts of the garden.

By the side of the shed is one of my favourite corners. Geranium and herb robert love this corner a lot.

I love this little moment, honesty, forget-me-not and this lovely geranium, I cannot remember its name, just loves it here and this little corner has been in flower for ages. I love how these three plants live here in perfect harmony.

Geum (a plant I only really discovered during lockdown) is a firm favourite and luckily it likes living in this garden. This is mai thai. It’s growing in my tiny veg patch (it really is a joke calling it that) with fennel on one side and a whitecurrant bush on the other.

For some reason, Finn thinks that I need a bodyguard (or at least a guard dog) when I’m in the garden. He’s always with me, even when I just want to have my quiet morning coffee there, by the shed, sitting on a tiny red stool brought here from Hungary. I have no idea how this corn flower arrived here and I’m not even sure I want it here. We’ll see.

I don’t grow a lot from seeds but I always grow violas from seeds. I also grow sweet peas, nasturtium (because I love the tiny leaves appear), coriander, dill, peas, parsley and these kinds of things. I also grow dahlias, from tubers, not pictured just yet, I start them off in pots a), to make sure they are ok and b), to take cuttings from them. This year, I took several cuttings from a Totally Tangerine one and those cuttings will go into pots very soon. I planted all my dahlias a couple of weeks ago and all is well so far.

The last of the tulips and the first rose to flower soon. Sweet peas, carrots, forget-me-nots..

The aforementioned bodyguard. And nasturtium “milkmaid” appearing, it keeps coming back every ear.

My tiny vegpatch. Sorrel, rocket, peas, parsley, currants, aquilegias now in full bloom.. ah, all sorts. I love this mess.

The lawn part of the garden is looking good with the forget-me-nots but it’s a really difficult area due to those giant suckers there. Although I really don’t mind the hawthorn. And yes, the bodyguart.

All things a bit less pretty but yet, very much part of the garden.

Capturing the whole garden, like I often do for work, doesn’t always work for me but there are always beautiful little moments, corners, areas that tell the story just as perfectly.

And a final note. We are going to leave this garden by next Spring. When we moved here 11 years ago, we could see there had been a beautiful garden here before that, long time ago. We loved it straight away, it’s secluded and the surroundings are beautiful, we have far stretching views from the back (oh, the back! it’s full of wild marjoram, fennel.. ah all things wild, I’ll show that in the Summer). So yes, we are now looking for another place and finding somewhere with a garden where we can actually garden is one of the most difficult things. If you know of such a place, do get in touch. Oh, one thing though. It has to be very, very quiet. Without major road noise. And where the bodyguard is also welcome, of course.