Magnificent May

and Elvis Costello

What a wonderful month May turned out to be. Obviously it’s a month that signals the end of spring, and the slow, or in this case, slightly quicker, meander into Summer. Verdant greens, olive tints, emerald and acid hues; foliage erupting alongside early blooms. The Forget me Nots were unforgettable (!), the Gladiolus × byzantinus HUGE and rich, the early roses show it should be ‘a good year for the roses’ (I love the original too, but prefer Elvis C’s version). The Generous Gardener (David Austin of course) proving to be more than generous, so much so, that now the June winds have come (never heard of them before!), the petals have made a mattress of delicious pinky cream on the soil beneath.

Not sure whether it’s just me, I suspect not, but the beginning of the month in my miniscule ‘potting shed’ is a riot of seed packets, last years seed trays (mostly cracked and caked in mud), spiders webs everywhere and tools that need either replacing or taking to the ‘dump’. Where I probably got them in the first place. I obviously don’t take the advice I so carefully give out in my own book, ‘A New Cottage Garden’ (just in case I haven’t mentioned it before), and didn’t spend the requisite number of hours scraping, cleaning and sharpening during the winter months! However, its the most fantastic summer month, still full of hope and excitement for all the new growth, and even a bit of warmth in the air.

As the month wears on, the trays have filled with tiny seedlings (and some not so tiny… I planted some ‘American Giant’ sunflowers in pots, and they turned out to be… well, GIANT!). Now there is nowhere to put them all! I have a small plant stall outside the house, and the holiday-makers that visit our village, and even the pub-goers that crawl back from the Pigs Nose Inn, grab a few on their way home… it keeps me in coffee and wine.

As we all know, a cottage garden is meant to be crammed with flowers, herbs, even vegetables, and this has its great benefits (lots of flowers to cut, lettuce to eat, fewer spaces for unwanted plants to creep in), but the disadvantage is that there’s nowhere to put the sunflowers, Ammi majus, Cornflowers and Sweet Peas that I have so diligently sown and nurtured!

Oh, I forgot, I was interviewed by the excellent Toby Buckland on BBC Radio Devon; thanks to him for being enthusiastic about the aforementioned book, available here on Amazon, or over on my website if you want a signed copy. Thanks all, and happy gardening!

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