Our garden’s journey into summer has not been without incident this year. We’ve met the traffic jams of plunging temperatures and capricious winds along the road.
Yet gradually the bubbling energy of spring has given way to the frisson of summer days. And our garden has courted us once more to enjoy its depths. Check out the idea for the next garden project in the little video at the end!
Late spring days
April
The garden is still haunted by those merry harbingers of spring days the daffodils! As they deservingly linger to feed their bulbs with messily dying leaves. It is a good job that I look forward to seeing them so much and put up with their antics until at last we can sweep away the yellowing leaves in a flurry of lawn mowing!
The tulips have proved a welcome distraction unexpectedly reappearing again in the pots and magically absent in the borders. As a novice tulip convert I’ve since read that any variety with “Darwin” in the name should and I only say should, reappear year after year. A point to consider whilst dallying over those enchanting colour combinations! And maybe with an earnest conversation with Mr Rabbit too!
Opposite – the Kitchen garden ready for spring planting
May
By May the garden is like a pulsation engine, throbbing to the beat of approaching summer. The birds’ race about the gardens now, urged on by clamorous tweeting from hidden corners.
It’s in May that the Echiums make their spectacular dash for the sky and introduce their joyful movement to frame the lawns!
The potager or kitchen garden turned into a battle ground between rabbits and man and maybe the subject of green beans shouldn’t be aired too widely.
The summer courtship of the garden
June
June brought the first heat wave although precluded by temperatures “that feel like seven degrees” I can promise that it definitely did for two days. And yet a garden is very forgiving and sailed on regardless.
June brought inspiration at last, to re collate the pots that frame the courtyards and entrances and form the very germ of an idea. . .
The old water pump
In the corner of a small dining courtyard beside the house, we have a magnificent pump that presides above a big subterranean water tank. The tank itself was reputedly blown out of the rocks by explosives in mining times. A dipping tank would be perfect here for all of those terracotta pots? And you know how one thing leads to another? Charles suggested harvesting the rainwater to fill the tank and create a spectacular water feature perhaps? The video shows some of the humming and hah-ing in a mock up (driven by a hosepipe) but won’t it be an amazing idea if we can solve the logistics of conquering the tank!
