A hard rain
Monday 3 May
A bank holiday, and like so many bank holiday, plans for a day outside are thwarted by gales. A purple aquilegia braves the conditions and flowers abundantly. All the more impressive for it growing out of a crack in a wall.
Tuesday 4 May
Now is a moment for the trees. The beech finally sheds its old leaves and bursts into the most vibrant green. The lilac is in full flower and my viburnum opulus (snowball bush) is covered in lime green pompoms. I am quite pleased as I always harvest this quite hard to place the flowers en masse in an urn. The quince is in bloom. The apples are absolutely smothered in blossom. The landscape of Pickeridge Hill seemed still a little patchy grey and I was worried that this meant the ash trees had died. Closer inspection reveals that they are coming into leaf, just rather slowly. Given that all of the Corfe oaks are fully clothed in acid green leaves and have been for a while, I declare it oak before ash.
Wednesday 5 May
Which means we are in for a splash. Rain has been forecast all this week and sometimes it has appeared and sometimes it hasn’t. It has fallen off the thatch on onto my huge pot of belle epoque tulips. I had already decided that these were the best bulbs I have had for many years (belle epoque do vary so; I am not sure a quality supply could ever keep up with the considerable demand) and these were perfect. Almost as if they had a little parrot in them, so the petal opened very wide and revealed slight ruffling. The drips of rain only improved them. They look reckless and decadent and not a little on the edge. I have long believed that perfect flowers are over-rated.
Thursday 6 May
My first parish council meeting. Not to be underestimated as a source of entertainment and intrigue.
Friday 7 May
A wonderful way to end the week. Bex Partridge of Botanical Tales made a film for Gather about drying flowers. I pour a gin into my favourite glass, proper tonic, and I sit and watch this incredibly talented florist and grower explain all her secrets to me. The backdrop of a branch full of dried flowers, the colours, the tulips in the window. Everything was perfect.
Saturday 8 May
The heavy rain that was forecast never quite appeared (this has been a theme this week). I anticipate it though and spend most of the day in the greenhouse. There is something about air in a greenhouse. Maybe its stillness, maybe the fact that it is always at a warming temperature. I find it very therapeutic. I prick out and pot on at least fifty phlox crème brulee plants. I was a little pessimistic about germination rates and so sowed them rather thickly… Maud has had enough of such activity and takes to her bed.
Sunday 9 May
Planting out. The biodynamic calendar said conditions are unfavourable today and I should do nothing at all, but I just couldn’t wait any longer. The greenhouse is full (fifty phlox plants take up a significant amount of room, and I think I have a similar number of tomatoes) and I just need to get stuff out. All the whites (nigella, a delightful white flax from France, some larkspur) go across two beds. To soften them, I add dusky tones. Red cabbages mostly, somewhat controversially. That whole area of the field is self sown thickly with bronze fennel and atriplex as well, just to add to the warmth of the planting. Some plants are left over from last year’s design. The odd gillenia trifoliata sprouts strongly. Something that might rather incongruously be a rudbeckia.
I hope you have had a lovely weekend,
G x