During a week (the run up to Chelsea ’09, my thoughts go out to the poor souls out there…) of perpetual grey skies and a nasty niggling wind, a friend (called June, ironically) emailed from southern France, with words to the effect that her garden was looking good, but then if you can’t make your garden look good in May you must be a pretty poor gardener…and I suppose she is right.
To me, the first half of May can be a bit of a waiting game which I rather enjoy. The in-your-face Spring ‘stars’ are flagging: the last of my tulips are now dog-eared, juicy Dicentras are leggy and buffeted by the wind.
Of course, there are flowers aplenty – the tree paeony is in top form and it is a particularly good time for Aquelegias.
I am particularly appreciative of my upstanding Euphorbias that seem to glow in the gloom, for that much-loved spikey, dusky-leafed Libertia ixioides (about which I wrote this time last year and which is even more fullsome now).
Almost above all though, I am enjoying the the splendid pristine contrasts of the green foliage in my borders which I plant with leafy May in mind almost as much as for the eventual colour of its later blowsey performance.
I have a visiting group tomorrow…I hope they appreciate the greenery as much as I do.
Helen Yemm 