mid-May

It feels like it has been raining for months, although not that long ago, I was complaining about hot dry days and freezing cold night. The tulips have been late, apart from the ones that were early. The biennials are out, apart from those that aren’t. The beech has finally burst into acid green leaf.

In addition to the usual flowers, I have added the blackboard from Trill Farm Garden which illustrates rather beautifully what salad leaves they are harvesting this week. I am going to shamelessly steal their idea of using my blackboard for my ‘What’s out now’ series and so I thought I had better give them credit…

It really does feel like spring has sprung now though. The irises are bursting. Langport Wren is always first and is inkily glorious, although shorter and stumpier than the others. Langport is not far away from here and almost all of my irises were bought from Kelways, an amazing specialist in peonies, although they seem to have stopped doing irises. Perhaps because I bought them all.

The only iris I could not source from them was a Downtown Brown Iris, mentioned once by Sarah Ryhanen in a blog post and never forgotten. Rumour has it can only be got from America although India (an iris obsessive) has one…

Iris ‘Langport Wren’

This time of the year is usually zingy colours. Geums. Honesty. Sometimes the first of the roses. I don’t know if it is the year or it is me, but the garden is satisyingly and dramatically dark. My absolute favourite, the deep purple cow parsley. The last of the tulips are rich and opulent. Dom Pedros, finally. An aquilegia the colour of neat Ribena. The darkest lilac. All softened by some blues: the bluebells, a magically scented wisteria.

The odd pop of white too though; Solomon’s Seal and one beautiful Dicentra ‘alba’.

Aquilegia

Ribwort Plantain

Solomon’s Seal

Back door wisteria