Late May

"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.

How else indeed to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?"

-Vita Sackville West

Cattle relaxing amongst buttercups on the marais

Despite ravages of wind and rain which drive us mad with their unseasonal frequency, we find the cattle have arrived back in their summer pasture, sensibly staying together in a sheltered corner. The sheep, too, are back on their hillside and a few more horses have been quartered out on the marais.

A 'baudet' or Poitou donkey

Three female Poitou donkeys, which were put out to graze on a hillside early this year, are still in residence but starting to look somewhat bored with their well-chomped meadow.

Their huge size and appealing shagginess contrast with their delicate little feet and gentle natures. Once it starts to really warm up, I fear there isn't much in the way of shelter for them and it must get tiring standing on a slope all day.

Ah well, we've given up trying to understand animal husbandry as practised locally...

Bee Orchid (Ophrys scolopax)

Orchids

The grassland surrounding these donkeys is full of pyramid orchids but it's difficult to tell whether they're tempted to munch any which might grow within their electrified enclosure.

Elsewhere, after seeing a profusion of large 'pyramids' growing along the verges, we came across this pretty array of bee orchids, some of which are noticeably paler than the usual pinkish-mauve. Our damp weather has certainly favoured the orchid colonies and they seem to have spread more widely.

Orlaya grandiflora with foxgloves and Anchusa azurea behind

Meanwhile our own home-grown "meadow" is coming along nicely under the medlar tree. In the background a pale pink cistus is just coming into bloom, along with a yellow evening primrose and some geum in the forefront.

New plants from seed

It's quite satisfying to think that most of the above - save for that geum and cistus - have been grown from seed, all of it supplied by those nice folk at Chiltern Seeds.

The latest batch are growing well, having been moved from their cold frame and hardened-off on a table in semi-shade. These are mostly perennials like veronica, scabious and rudbeckia.

When it comes to potting up seedlings and cuttings, it's amazing how much you can fit into a tight area with careful arrangement of pots and trays. Using a black bin for compost and painting tables and raised-beds in black, helps to keep them uniform and fairly unobtrusive.

Dianthus barbatus 'Sooty'

As mentioned earlier this month, the sweet williams called 'Sooty' have delightfully spiky foliage and really stand out against the enveloping tide of green.

Their ruby-velvet flower clusters are just starting to open and are seen here against a background of Romneya - a perennial white poppy from California which is already showing fat buds.

Enlarging on the dark theme, I'm currently growing some black antirrhinums to provide additional drama next spring!

Flowers for cutting

Spring selection of columbines, foxglove and orlaya

The above illustrates how dark foliage and flowers provide contrast in a vase. Bronzy-red leaves and stem belong to Penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red', whilst the left-hand cluster is our aforementioned 'Sooty'.

We have a continual parade of pink, apricot and white foxgloves, some of which suffered from snail damage early on, reducing the size of their stems but giving us more flower stalks per plant. Even though a few of these are bent out of shape, they're still a useful length for popping into a jug or vase - it's worth docking a few plants just for this purpose!

Pinks give us a never-ending supply of blooms which last well in water and look particularly fetching with a combination of orlaya and wild allium. These pink-tinged white onion flowers grow in grassy meadows and waysides but fortunately don't smell when picked.

French cottage garden

A neighbouring village held its annual flower show the other weekend and I couldn't resist photographing one of the local front gardens which was attracting much interest from passers-by.

I love the cascade of snow-in-summer and I'm sure all that lily-of-the-valley on the other side will smell wonderful, but I can't help wondering if anything else will happen when all that flowering is finished?

Whereas English gardeners enjoy a parade of flowers from early spring through to late autumn, I've noticed that some local people rely on just a few plant types and may even, for instance, use multiples of the same rose - something that probably originates with formal French gardening in days gone by.

Mediterranean plants grown in a raised bed

When it comes to cottage gardens, they don't come much more 'bijou' than the little raised-bed in front of our studio (aka the old pigsty).

Its well-drained sandy soil is good for sun-lovers like dianthus and cistus, but we've been particularly surprised at how much the mauve scabious and Lavandula dentata have thrived. They've both been flowering their socks off for weeks, doubtless aided by the frost-free winter.

Turtle dove
 (Streptopelia turtur)

Bird world

This pretty turtle dove was part of a trio spotted in a nearby vineyard whilst we were out walking. It's quite a rarity in these parts compared with all the collared doves we see feasting on grain from surrounding fields.

At times this place is a total confusion of birdsong, together with warning clucks from anxious parent birds - like the black redstart who takes over the garden as his territory and practically drives our cat demented.

One bird we hear regularly but never see, skulking as it does beside the water-course outside our gate, is the "Chap with the Megaphone" as we used to call him. We finally identified him as Cetti's warbler, who bursts out with the same song every morning: it goes "cheewip - chipper - chipper - chipper - chipper". (And, in case you didn't catch it, he'll happily give you an encore ten minutes later!)

Shelduck babies (Tadorna tadorna)

Living so near the Gironde Estuary, we quite often see shelducks flying over the marais, usually in pairs. The other morning a couple were repeatedly flying over our garden making a lot of noise, but it wasn't until we ventured out for a walk that we saw these ducklings fast-pedalling up the water channel.

For some reason the adults seemed to be encouraging them from the air rather than 'maman duck' taking a guardian role and leading on the water. Perhaps these parents thought we were posing a threat?

We carried on with our circular walk and were coming back down the hill twenty minutes later when what should we see struggling up the road in front but the intrepid gang of eleven ducklings?

There ensued several heart-in-mouth moments as we signalled oncoming cars to slow down as the little tribe waddled its way uphill... no guessing how many finally made it onto the marais. (We blame those irresponsible parents!)

Finally, a serene sight

Another French garden - with cleverly matching wisteria and clematis!

Early May

"And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,

Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk..."

- Thomas Hardy

View from our back garden

Green hillsides are swagged with hawthorn bushes, their pungent white blossoms known as 'may' because they invariably arrive with the month. But you know it's not quite summer as the farmer hasn't yet put his sheep out on the ridge.

Our garden, too, has its share of white flowers at present, none more extravagant than Virburnum opulus which has exceeded itself in producing a huge number of creamy-green spheres.

Viburnum opulus aka the 'Snowball Tree'

Alas it's not the most weather-resitant shrub and you can almost guarantee that heavy rain will strike just as the blooms reach their full potential.

Sure enough there are thunder-storms forecast this week, but after a long spell of drying winds most of our plants will be glad of some root-refreshing moisture. Real rain always seems to work better than water from cans!

Orlaya grandiflora
available from Chiltern Seeds

Umbellifers

Lacy flowers of orlaya are more like snowflakes and mimic the soft waves of cow parsley now adorning our back lane.

It's a useful filler plant which seeds itself under our medlar tree and mixes well with other spring flowers such as geum and foxglove, giving the relaxed feel of a meadow.

Seedlings become apparent in early autumn when they can be thinned out and easily moved to other areas if required.

This year we're also growing some Ammi visnaga, a more imposing umbellifer, now coming into bloom and looking as though it will take up considerably more space!

Cistus ladanifer, standing up to the rain

White flowers are certainly one way of breaking up the sea of green that engulfs our garden at this time of year. In addition, it's useful to interpose plants with darker foliage, such as Sambucus nigra Purpurea -  whose coppery foliage stands out in the border below, to the right of the little box hedge.

Back border edged with boules of lavender

You can see we also have a surfeit of forget-me-nots in the back garden! These provide welcome patches of blue but can obscure - and interfere with - other emerging plants, such as heleniums and echinacea which need a fair bit of light and space to develop properly.

Once we've had this promised rainfall, we'll probably yank out annuals like myosotis and put down some garden compost, before re-filling the gaps with Cosmos sulphureus grown from seed.

Contrasting Foliage

Penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red'
with Gladiolus Byzantinus communis

Another very successful plant from the Chiltern Seeds collection is this maroon-leaved Penstemon digitalis called 'Husker Red', which does a great job of breaking up that aforementioned sea of green!

It's a sturdy fellow, seemingly immune to snails, and produces panicles of white flowers in June. I like the fact that its foliage looks so glossy after watering.

Next to it is one of the Gladiolus Byzantinus that we dotted around the garden last year, again to provide some accent colour and draw the eye from one area to another.

Dianthus barbatus 'Sooty'

A few of Chiltern's sweet williams which I grew from seed last year have made it through the wet winter and are now throwing up their dark stems amongst the forget-me-nots.

This is Dianthus barbatus 'Sooty' - aptly named, I think, for its cheeky black heads! Sadly some of my little plants came to grief as they over-wintered in our borders, but the survivors are doing well and I can't wait for their eventual flowering.

Generally, all types of dianthus seem to thrive in our garden and I'm gradually working my way through the multitude of varieties in Chiltern's catalogue!

Geranium 'Orkney Cherry'
 -an early-flowering variety
with finely-cut dark foliage

Geraniums are invaluable to any gardener and we now hunt for those with darker foliage, as well as eye-catching flowers.

For the edge of the border there's a smallish variety called 'Orkney Cherry' which has bronze-green leaves and vibrant pink flowers.

Another cranesbill we bought at a fair, which hasn't produced many flowers to date, is Geranium maculatum 'Espresso', supposed to be suitable for shadier, woodland areas.

I've now divided this into three pieces, to see if it will perform better in other parts of the garden. This year I'm hoping to see lots of white flowers, which would look fabulous against the coffee-brown leaves.

Centaurea montana

Bright Blues

Nowadays we also search for plants with unusual shapes as they're interesting to photograph... often more so when they're in bud than in full flower. 

Centaurea montana, however, delivers on both counts and I love the oval capitulum reminiscent of overlapping insect scales.

Centaurea montana - perennial cornflower
growing on cliffs and mountains, as well as gardens!

Aquilegia hybrid

One of the first flowers to bring in some colour after our bulbs have died down is that good old staple - aquilegia.

I did grow a named variety with deep blue flowers a few years back, but I think this has now hybridised with something else in the garden and produced a rather handsome cousin sporting three shades of blue.

Due perhaps to the wet winter/spring, our aquilegias are taller and more stately this year.  Well worth dead-heading to prolong the flowering period.

Borago officinalis

Something else which grows in waysides around here and might be considered a weed is the sky-blue borage, often used as a decorative addition to salads and Pimms No. 1.

This one happened to seed itself by the compost heap in our woodland section, where it was allowed to reach maturity undisturbed and is now covered in blooms. Backlit by early sunshine, it makes for an irresistible photo.

Anchusa azurea 'Dropmore'
- with matching swallowtail butterfly

If not the biggest flowers, those of Anchusa azurea are some of the most intense in colour, and obviously attractive to this early swallowtail who kept coming back for more!

These plants, which also came from Chiltern Seeds, were widely featured at the Chelsea Flower Show two years ago and soon became a must-have for cottage-style gardens. Ours are now 1.5m tall in full sun and provide plenty of nectar for butterflies.

A dry border edged with pinks, catmint and Iberis sempervirens