A elderflower is an echo from the future

Monday 17 May

Cow parsley everywhere. Lining the lanes, even thicker than usual for being heavy with water. The first corn poppy. Strangely, it appeared when the plant had been blown over in the wind, snapping it at the base. The plant lies on the soil, suddenly covered in pops of scarlet crumpled silk. More tulips, the very last. I weigh up how much I like them and how long they will be allowed to stay. I need the containers for tomatoes. 

Wednesday 19 May

I get to do the absolute best things for Gather. Today, an interview with India of Vervain on irises. I don't think Zoom has ever seen such floral screens. We both sit in our respective kitchens, surrounded by opulent, elegant, ruffled blooms. Mine: Langport Wren, Champagne Elegance, Frappe. India's: Just a Crush, Purr, Flying Solo, Overcast. A News Blue, just starting to show colour. It is worth growing bearded irises just for the names.

Thursday 20 May

Beans. All the beans. Undercover because this weather has brought with it a population explosion of slugs. I keep the paths clean and avoid wooden edges and still they come. My worst habit is laying out plants in plastic pots, ready to plant out, and then get distracted and run out of time. When I go back a week later and lift the pot, there is always a cluster of slugs underneath. 

Friday 21 May

The gales are coming over the hills. I stake and re-stake as some of my constructions have not stood up to the unseasonal winds. That is as much as I do in the outdoors and I retreat to the greenhouse to pot up my newly delivered dahlias cuttings. 

Saturday 22 May

A window in the bad weather so brief I don't even bother to change my jumper. I weed in a thick woolly jumper, uncomfortable in the sudden warmth of the sun. I sweep the courtyard by the back door and set up the trestle table for morning coffees. A line of Mara des Bois strawberries in terracotta pots down the centre. A jam jar with springs of fennel. 

Sure enough, by teatime it is raining again. The raindrops bounce off the table, mocking me.

Sunday 23 May

And yet there is so much that is still happening. The first dog roses, so beautiful with their delicate heart-shaped petals. I spy the first elderflower, high up and sodden looking, but still a reminder that one day, there will be floral champagne and platters of salad scattered with marigold petals, eaten on the long oak table under the fruit trees. 

Here's to a drier week to come,

G x