My garden in May

It’s been a glorious month in our garden, though the good weather at the start of the month took a bit of a toll on my roses, and a couple of other plants which weren’t keen on the hot spells and not much water. The roses went a bit crispy, which isn’t a good thing. Oops.

That they were in pots was a good thing as I was able to move them to a more sheltered part of the garden so they were able to recover, and they have - phew. But before we get to those, last month was all about the blossom on my crab apple tree, and well after blossom comes tiny crab apples.

It looks like it might be a bumper year for crab apples, not quite so for the peaches though - I’ve only spotted three fruits forming, but given that it had peach leaf curl, I suppose three is better than none. I’m hoping that all three manage to last the course to fruition - fingers crossed.

Both tomatoes which I bought at the Newark Garden Show last month are doing well - I’m taking no chances though and all the plants I bought at the show, and the roses and astrantia which are in ‘special measures’ are temporarily in the shelter of the trellis from the heat pump. It seems to be helping those that were suffering and these tomatoes clearly are ok with it too as they’re about to flower.

The Mottisfont rose seemed the most affected and dropped the majority of its leaves, but with a more regular watering schedule and some shelter you can see just how well it’s recovered, with plenty of new growth all over the plant.

The Gertrude Jeckyll wasn’t affected quite so much and has since gone on to flower more profusely than it has before, and more than the other one we had in our London garden did. So I’m hopeful that with plenty of dead-heading and another feed when the time’s right, we’ll have plenty of roses this year. At the moment the downside is they’re in a place where we can’t see them, but for now I’ll take that.

They’ve had a bit of a year as after the crispy leaves shock, they also got whitefly and now seem to have attracted blackfly - my year of the roses, seems to be ongoing!

But when they deliver flowers like this, even after all their tribulations you really can’t argue, can you?

Surprisingly the newest rose, which I hadn’t even potted on (I have now) was the least affected by the weather, whether that’s because of its position in the garden, I’m not sure. But I’m glad to see it thriving.

Elsewhere in the garden the peonies are getting to burst their tightly bound buds. One seems to be aiming for Olympic heights, but if it’s happy then I’m happy. My hardy fuchsias have behaved differently this year too, I have four or five bushes, and all bar one of them have grown new shoots from the base of the plants rather than sprouting new growth on the older stems. I left them for as long as I could, and until the frosts should have passed, but in the end I cut the twiggy stems back - and there were a lot, my compost bin is full of fuchsia sticks. I’ve left enough though for them to provide some structure and support to the newer and more tender growth. So far they seem to be doing ok, but are clearly smaller than they have been before.

I’ve been a bit obsessed with my ‘Chelsea Jackets’ wallflowers and seemingly take a picture every time I walk past them if the number of photos of them on my phone are anything to go by.

I’ve had some unexpected discoveries this month too, with a couple of plants throwing up some flowers when I didn’t expect them to. The first was the iris which we bought at the Newark Garden Show. I didn’t expect much from this this year, especially as it’s still in the pot it came in, but it started to show signs of a flower and it’s become as obsessive as watching the wallflowers.

This is how it started:

Above is the most recent picture I have, it’s already awesome and I know it’s going to be gorgeous once it’s out fully.

The other surprise flowering is taking place in our outside border, on a plant I thought was a kind of grass but now realise is probably a kind of yucca. I spotted it as I drove in one day, and went for a closer look.

As you can see the flowers aren’t quite there yet, and I can’t wait to see how they look in full bloom. These also look as if they’re going to be pretty spectacular, and with the lavender in front of them, and throughout the garden, almost ready to flower it’s going to be a riot of colour and scent, and bees hopefully!

I’ve potted on and tidied up the burgundy heucheras, which also looked a bit crispy around the edges. They’ve repaid this attention with some flowers, which will be the palest of pinks when they open. My daisies have also recovered from a fair bit of neglect too, which is also good news as I really thought they were a gonner.

While I don’t like to lose any plants, these were ones we bought when our previous house was on the market to dare I say tart up the garden a bit, but they’ve hung around so I would be sorry to have lost these.

This month I struck on a genius way of stopping my watering can blowing about the garden when I leave it out - I don’t know why it’s taken so long, but I realised if I threaded it over the pole of the parasol (which lives outside without the parasol) it can’t blow anywhere - and it’s easy to get to to use.

I’m so pleased with myself!

The new sign that I bought at the Devon County Show is up on the trellis and looks fab, though I did need to de-cobweb the trellis beforehand. MOH has since de-cobwebbed all of the cladding and window sills/surrounds and door steps, and let’s just say it’s not a one time job as we know the webs and fluff will be back before too long. But the sign looks good.

We also took delivery of the large pot that we bought at Grand Designs on a whim. Thankfully it works just where, and how I thought it would. As soon as we had it off the pallet I was desperate to try it where I’d imagined it. Now I have to imagine it with a standard olive tree planted in it, well until we buy one anyway - I’ve a plan to tour our local garden centres looking for one later this month!

Once it was in place MOH could see how I thought it would work, and liked it which is good news. I’ve realised I’m quite a visual person so can more easily see things in my mind than MOH can - but he trusts me, and it worked out, so that’s a result. For my larger garden design ideas I do need to work out how to get them down on paper in a way that MOH can also visualise, I think that’s going to be a bit of a challenge, but I’m sure we’ll get there.

And with more crispy plants than I’d like this month, and the fact that I’m running out of pots to put new plants in, I think the plans for our gardens will need to progress more quickly this summer. I’m sure it’s going to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride, and a lot of work, but first we need to finalise what we want.

I’ll leave you with two more of the plants we brought with us which are in my new extended hospital bay, alongside the garage. My bay trees weren’t looking so well either, they’d been up against the front wall over the winter taking shelter, but with their leaves yellowing they were also crying out for some attention.

I’ve pulled them out of the borders so they can get some more sun, but not so they’re in full sun and given them a double diluted feed of tomato feed. I picked off all of the yellow leaves from the bush on the left, which was looking healthier than its counterpart, and then picked off the worst of the yellow leaves from the other bush.

They’re already looking much healthier than they were, and it seems that bay trees in pots can be susceptible to yellow leaves due to a lack of nutrition, so a feed should help them. I’m hoping I spotted these before it was too late as we’ve had these for absolutely ages. They did start out the same size, and kept growing at similar speeds for many years. Then they spent one particularly bad winter on opposite sides of our London garden, and came out of that with different growth rates - so I can no longer pair them together, but that’s ok as I’ve realised that’s not quite what I want in this garden anyway!

Let’s hope the good weather - but not so good it makes my plants crispy again - continues!

My garden in April

Last month it was all about the bulbs in my garden, this month they’ve been and gone. The tulips were a bit of a let down really, and so I think they need some attention once they’ve died back. My plan is to repot them so they’ll have some fresh soil for next spring, and while I’m at it some of my daffodils would probably also benefit from the same treatment.

This month it’s been about the shrubs coming back to life, though not all of them are there yet disappointingly. There’s been a first visit to a garden show - more on what we saw there in a future post, but carry on reading to see what I left with and my plans for those.

With nice weather it’s surprising how quickly things - and specifically plants - change. At the start of the month this acer was only just coming into bud, a fortnight later it was in full leaf and looking really healthy. These past few hot days has seen it drop a few leaves, so plenty of water when it cools down in the evening has, I think, been helping.

Likewise our crab apple tree started to develop the red buds of blossom in the middle of month, so for our family barbecue, it glistened jewel-like in the background, and then boom - the blossom was out in all its gloriousness a week or so later. I’ve many more photos of it than I’m sharing here, but please indulge me a bit of home grown blossom love!

Yes, you can see how it’s quite addictive!

Elsewhere in the garden the dogwoods also started to flower, and yes they’re still in the pots we moved them in. Over the winter I’ve been trying them out in a new spot - one that we can see from the house, so when their stems are at their vibrant best we can enjoy them from inside. We’re happy with the spot they’re in now, so they are earmarked for planting out when the conditions are right.

The peach tree has shed all its blossom now, and there are a few tiny, tiny fruits starting to develop. It’s shot up too, so I think I’ll be able to train one, maybe two more horizontal branches - though I do need to get some more canes (or shackle enough together) to do this.

It’s also developed what I’m pretty sure is peach leaf curl, a fungal disease which causes red patches - and while they in themselves are quite stunning, they can’t be doing the plant any good. The advice is to remove the affected leaves as quickly as possible and before the fungus blooms, which I’ve done, and hopefully this will reduce the risk of reoccurrence.

I’ll be keeping my eye out for any more leaves, and removing those too. The solution is apparently to cover them with plastic over the winter months, which clearly is a bit late to know about now. Anyway, let’s hope it’s just a blip and it continues to grow and produce at least a couple of fruit.

Our longer term plan is to plant it at the base of the wall (which will make it easy to cover in plastic sheeting in future) but exactly where is still unknown. If planting it out is its next step then I could probably make a call, but if it’s happy to continue in a pot then I have one - and a much bigger one - on standby. We bought this at the Newark Garden Show, and while it looks like terracotta it’s actually plastic, and it’s one of the best I’ve seen. It’s much lighter than a terracotta pot (obviously) and a bit more resilient too, and if the peach tree is ready to move then it also gives me a bit more decision-making time!

We also bought a new, but aged and distressed, iron sculpture at the show - it’s currently still in its black plastic wrapping but has moved inside the garage for the time being. Getting it into the car was fun, but we managed it with the seats rearranged and MOH sitting in the back holding it in place.

Last year I only left the show with a couple of lupins, as our new garden was still very new to us and my plans were completely unknown. This year my appetite for plants has returned a little, and we did make some purchases including these Southern Globe Thistles which are perennials that like full/part sun and should flower in July/August with blue spherical flower heads.

This unusual Iris caught my eye - its flowers are a copper bronze and mahogany and it’d normally flower in May/June and once again it’s one that will return each year. Then there were a couple of dark flowered and purple leaved Penstemons, which along with those pictured will look great in a cottage garden type setting, which is lucky as that’s something I have in mind, but in the meantime I’ll continue to grow them in pots, potting them on as I need to.

I also succumbed to a fatsia, we had one in our previous garden which was huuuge but also very forgiving and very structural. This one is quite a bit smaller, and since seeing the white fatsia at last year’s Gardeners’ World Live it’s clearly been playing on my mind. I didn’t even know you could get white fatsias, but a variegated one seems like an even better option to me.

It has a bit of growing to do though, and I’ll be potting it on through a variety of ever increasing pots I’m sure.

Then I picked up a couple of tomato plants, this year opting for something a little more unusual than the Gardener’s Delight which I picked up from a garden centre late-on last year. There’s a red Honeycomb cherry tomato plant on the right, and a black skinned variety on the left.

It’s the tomatoes that have made me realise how much I miss having a greenhouse, and that not having a greenhouse makes seed growing quite hard work! That means it makes sense to stick to buying some plants for the time being, and that planning a greenhouse really should move up my priority list. And so it seemed right that my final purchase from the show was these tiny vintage terracotta pots, to add to my growing collection - and which will have pride of place in my new greenhouse one day!

Aren’t these just fab? And that one with PINK written on the rim, well I couldn’t leave that one there now could I?!

My garden in March

Last month there were hints of colour starting to appear in my garden, this month there’s been a lot more. It’s all been about the daffodils and the pops of colour they’ve brought to the border, the wallflowers and the start of the tulips.

Back at the start of the month, this is how it started.

But by the end of the first week, our first daffodils flowered. And the others weren’t too far behind them either.

Not all of the garden is back alive yet though, the fuchsia bushes - but I’m hopeful they won’t be too far behind.

The viburnum though is already flowering, and it’s great to see.

It was great to spot that my new-last-year wallflowers started to show signs of flowering, and I’ve been keeping my eye on them.

But we’ve also had some early blossom from the peach/nectarine tree - it’s not that surprising really as it’s much warmer by the old brick wall. It seems happy here - it’s still in a pot - so it looks as if it’s decided on its long term garden position, which is where I hoped it would be happy!

It was a month of surprises though as some daffodils sprung up amongst the wallflowers, and I’m not really sure where they came from. I’ve not had daffodils in that pot before, and it’s unlikely that they were in the pot with the wallflowers when I bought them, so it’s a garden mystery.

The tulips started to show themselves too, peeking out from their protective leaves. I really need to find a better place for them as if it stays windy they won’t last for long, but wherever they end up I want to be able to see them from the house - it’d be a shame to miss them wouldn’t it?

I had another surprise bulb appearance too. This time a bluebell in my rhubarb pot, this could have been in there a while as we had bluebells in our previous garden, although not knowingly in this pot - but the leaves don’t look like those bluebells, so maybe this one was a present from the birds. I’m happy it’s here though.

The wallflowers have been slow to show their flowers but they are finally starting - they’re a variety called ‘Chelsea Jackets’ and are a mixture of pastel colours.

And what a way to end the month, with the first proper tulip flowers growing taller, but not flowering just yet saving themselves for next month I’m sure.

Thanks for joining me for this month’s update, you can read all the posts in this series, and join me next month to see how my garden continues to grow!