How does your garden grow?
May. 20th, 2023 02:29 pmThe trees are in full, fresh green leaf, candles on the horse chestnuts, cow parsley and hawthorn in the hedgerows and they’re playing cricket up at the Sports and Social club (which everyone calls the cricket club). It must be spring. You’d think I’d lived long enough not to be surprised by spring but I am, every year. It seems that one day, the garden is full of daffodils and primroses and the next, the daffodils are all deadheaded, the primroses fading and the Aquilegias and foxgloves starting to stand tall.
Here’s what’s in flower now. I should have gone round with a notebook but this is just from memory.
Shrubs. Japonica (Chaenomeles, quince) is almost over. The tree peony over and done. A white clematis which I thought was dead. Weigela. Azalea starting. The pale pink cistus which grew so much bigger than I expected it to. Climbing roses with fewer buds than they had last year, Berberis with yellow flowers.
Perennials. Erigeron karvinskianus (slashed to the ground earlier in the year) in beds and paving cracks. Hardy geraniums. Geum bulgaricum. Gladiolus byzantinus (which never showed last year) has its first flower open. Lily of the Valley, another plant I thought I’d lost, is no longer filling a bed and spreading everywhere but has formed an orderly line and started to flower. London Pride, another which shrivelled last year (and I thought they were indestructible!) is flowering, if in smaller clumps than before. Aquilegias are flowering, purples, pinks, whites; all self-seeded, nothing fancy. Foxgloves taller every day and some showing colour. Solomon’s Seal now in full flower. Pulonarias. The totally tough perennial cornflowers. A basket which I put together a while ago and has been living in the greenhouse, is now getting a daily airing before being hung up for the summer.
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
I must have quoted this many times in my journal but it’s always true.
There was a strange weather phenomenon yesterday. In the afternoon we had a thunderstorm, with rain bucketing down, When I went to draw the upstairs curtains in the evening, a layer of mist was hovering over the field next door. I could see my garden clearly but beyond that, just the tops of trees in the distance. Weird and beautiful.
Here’s what’s in flower now. I should have gone round with a notebook but this is just from memory.
Shrubs. Japonica (Chaenomeles, quince) is almost over. The tree peony over and done. A white clematis which I thought was dead. Weigela. Azalea starting. The pale pink cistus which grew so much bigger than I expected it to. Climbing roses with fewer buds than they had last year, Berberis with yellow flowers.
Perennials. Erigeron karvinskianus (slashed to the ground earlier in the year) in beds and paving cracks. Hardy geraniums. Geum bulgaricum. Gladiolus byzantinus (which never showed last year) has its first flower open. Lily of the Valley, another plant I thought I’d lost, is no longer filling a bed and spreading everywhere but has formed an orderly line and started to flower. London Pride, another which shrivelled last year (and I thought they were indestructible!) is flowering, if in smaller clumps than before. Aquilegias are flowering, purples, pinks, whites; all self-seeded, nothing fancy. Foxgloves taller every day and some showing colour. Solomon’s Seal now in full flower. Pulonarias. The totally tough perennial cornflowers. A basket which I put together a while ago and has been living in the greenhouse, is now getting a daily airing before being hung up for the summer.
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
I must have quoted this many times in my journal but it’s always true.
There was a strange weather phenomenon yesterday. In the afternoon we had a thunderstorm, with rain bucketing down, When I went to draw the upstairs curtains in the evening, a layer of mist was hovering over the field next door. I could see my garden clearly but beyond that, just the tops of trees in the distance. Weird and beautiful.