Sometimes spring slowly creeps up on us. The green tinge that slowly moves across the hill as the different deciduous trees come into bud and then shatter into leaf in their turn. Every day brings new signs, new hope.

Not so in this spring. It arrived with a bang when I wasn’t looking. I left for Cornwall on the Friday in one season, and by Sunday night, we were firmly in another. Had I tried to photograph the ‘What’s out now’ even ten days ago, the pictures would have been very different. This morning, I cut lilacs in three different colours, aquilegia in five. The only geum I have (‘Mai tai’) is swaying gently but shortly in the breeze. I never can get them to grow to their stated height. Not unless I plant ‘Totally Tangerine’ anyway. It’s a great doer, but as unsubtle as its name.

And so a cup of coffee and a wander through the collapsing cow parsley. There are treats at every turn. This weekend is a very strong flower day and so I hope you will be out in your garden tending whatever you have out too.

I have photographed many of these varieties as single flowers because that is how I keep my records, but May is the time where you have so many flowers that it is a crime not to create with them. There are bowls and jam jars on every surface, each one crammed with buttercups and bluebells, aquilegias and fennel foliage. Although even I draw the line at arranging with nettles. These ones are destined for dyeing a silk scarf for Chelsea….