PLANTS IN FLOWER: Tulip 'Spring Green', Bluebells, Ladies Smock, Forget-me-not, Allium 'Purple Sensation', various types of Columbine, Violets, Love-lies bleeding, Camassia, Azaleas.
The weather in the early part of May has been generally warm, but with clear cold nights and some biting winds. The lambs have been feeling the pinch again this year! The sunny days enabled my daughter Tasha to weed the sloping Mediterranean garden which I have decided will be topped with gravel to keep the moisture in and the weeds out. I have a lot of sage seedlings, including some purple sage to replace the rosemary which died; also a few dianthus 'Siberian blue' which I have grown from seed and a handful of grey-leaved cotton lavender. Since some of the green viridiflora santolina died during the cold winter, Tasha has been replacing the dead plants with new cuttings which I took at the end of last year. I have also bought quite a quantity of a miniature purple iris, but I am not sure how hardy it will prove to be here. Of course it will take some time for this bed to look mature again with these big gaps in the planting.
The herbaceous border is beginning to spring into life with the viridflora tulips 'Spring Green' emerging from the young foliage of the ladies mantle which fronts the beds. The bright blue camassias are just beginning to flower amid the leaves of siberian iris, foxglove, alstromeria, budding alliums and masses of herbaceous geraniums. There are still some conspicuous gaps in the planting, however, and I hope that my trays of seedlings will go a long way to completing the effect by the end of this summer. I still need to weed the area all around the white shrub roses at one side of the border which at present is swamped in nettles. All around the pond, the day lilies 'Black Knight' are sending up clusters of healthy green leaves which I hope will prove to be evergreen - or at least semi-evergreen. And in the water of the pond (which still looks an unhealthy green) the irises and water lilies seem to be thriving.