Mid May

"Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!

Hour prophetic - hour resuming the past!"

Walt Whitman - Song at Sunset

A welcome for the new French president perhaps ...?

I've departed from my usual gardening quote for two reasons: one strirred by the accidentally patriotic image I came across amidst all our brightly flowering dianthus (yes, we hope it's an 'hour prophetic' this time!), and the other being that 'splendor' of sunny evenings, when stems and flowers are highlighted in a golden wash, irresistible to the camera.

Garden pictures

White Armeria maritima providing
a foil for pink dianthus

White and blue flowers stand out well in late afternoon but it's important to use the right camera setting in order to expose for subtly shaded petals and not for those shadows behind, which become less distracting when they appear darker.

Sunlight can be so intense here that plants simply merge into one another in the middle part of the day - a particular problem when your garden is bursting with flowers, all jostling for pole position!

The bright blooms of geum, geranium and dianthus are spread throughout our cottage-style bedding and they each come to prominence at different times of day, making it important to stroll around and appreciate a new picture every few hours.

After their first outing on the water, maman
encourages them back to their nesting site

Swan song

In between, it's also necessary to check on the progress of local wildlife, like the pair of swans I've featured in recent months.

They began nest-building beside Robert's lake in early March and we finally saw the female brooding on 24th March.

Her mate seemed to keep his distance most of the time, flying off every evening to spend his nights elsewhere... the cad!

After many visits to check on her progress, we were getting worried that she could well die of starvation before any of the eggs hatched.  Eventually, we got a late night email from Robert to say the babies were out and we should make haste to take pictures and videos.

By then it was May 3rd, yellow flags were out making a pretty picture beside the lake, and the male swan actually deigned to come and visit his new brood.

Eight cygnets paddling furiously in their mother's wake

But, sadly, that was the last we saw of them all!  According to Robert, the whole family disappeared upstream soon afterwards and we can only assume that papa swan had been off finding a new - and hopefully safer - abode for his chicks.

Foxgloves with blue aquilegia

Good companions

I think we must have at least half a dozen varieties of Digitalis purpurea on display now, although some of them have fared badly due to a sudden hot, dry spell which left them with tiny flowers.

I hate to see a plant in distress - if it's too late to help with water, best to cut it down! In the case of foxgloves you might be lucky and get more flower spikes if there's some decent rainfall.

Christina took similarly drastic action with some of the aquilegias which were producing masses of foliage earlier in the season. She chopped them back, flower stems and all, with the result that they came up with more blooms and less leaf second time around!

Geranium 'Azure Rush'

We also have at least ten types of cranesbill geraniums in various parts of the garden, many of the taller varieties combining well with climbing roses.

Some are better in part-shade, like this pretty and prolific flowering 'Azure Rush' which makes excellent ground-cover under a cistus bush.

Its blooms are very similar to those of the popular 'Rozanne' but it's more compact and lower growing.

Geum coccineum 'Borisii' with
Oedemera nobilis beetle

And where there's a preponderance of blue flowers, as in our garden, it's always a good idea to fleck the ocean with touches of yellow and orange.

Some people grow English marigolds like weeds, providing lots of zing amongst the greenery; in our soil we seem to have more luck with geums and I love this one called 'Borisii' which is floriferous without being rampant. Unlike some others...

I've just had to cut down several stems of Geum chiloense 'Mrs Bradshaw' because her scarlet blooms were in danger of eclipsing everything else! 

Evening primrose

Moving on to more pastel shades, I love the flowers of this evening primrose because they're so luminous and delicately painted inside.

I grew this one from seed found in a friend's garden but unfortunately the foliage is rather limp and weedy so it can easily collapse in heavy rain.

Better I think to cultivate the rockery version, Oenothera speciosa 'Siskyou', which has very similar big flowers but a more creeping habit. It thrives in moist, well-drained soil in full sun.

Evening light on terracotta, with Echeveria 'Perle von Nurnberg'
in foreground and a Primula auricula flowering behind

Combining subtlety of colour with architectural shape, it's hard to beat sedums and echeveria hybrids, like the one above given to us recently by friends.

After a visit to Beth Chatto's Essex garden last year, we were inspired to resurrect some of our old pots to plant up with a selection of succulents. They provide interest throughout the year and are easy to manage in a courtyard garden - not much weeding required!

Since coming here and taking regular walks in the countryside, I've come to appreciate just how many plant shapes are based on the dandelion principle.

Tragopogon porrifolius

Tragopogon

Perhaps the most stately of these roadside weeds is a plant commonly known as Salsify, originally planted as a root vegetable in central Europe.

Its beautiful flower head only opens in the morning and has also given it the name 'Purple Goat's Beard', although I think it's more of a two-toned pink myself.

There's also a yellow version which is more abundant in our verges.

Both strains have magnificent seedheads and deserve to be even more widespread.

Tragopogon pratensis - three stages of a single plant

Viburnum sargentii 'Onondaga'

Shrubs
There's such an abundance of shrubs doing wonderful things in May that it's hard to pick out a favourite.

But every garden should have at least one member of the viburnum family and this was a cultivar I'd wanted to try for a long time.

We finally tracked down a small plant at a fair three years ago and it's now reaching maturity, 
about 1.5m tall and covered with exquisite lacecap blooms which later produce berries.

The only thing it lacks is scent and for that you need the early-flowering types like Viburnum carlesii.

Allium christophii a star emerging from its chrysalis

Alliums
It's taken a while to get alliums established in our garden and now they seem to be popping up everywhere.

Not so much in sunny open spaces, as you might expect, but in slightly shaded areas under shrubs.

Although we've tried a few different sorts, it's the 'Star of Persia' (Allium christophii) which is particularly at home in our soil, recklessly spreading its seed close to other established plants.

Allium christophii sharing the stage with yellow
evening primrose and blue geranium

As with many bulbs, it's interesting to watch the flower head emerging from its tight bud and acquiring its spherical shape.

Amazing that such complexity can be folded so neatly into a small space... it's true of all seeds, of course, but rather more spectacular to observe in an allium like this.

And those flowering 'stars' have a metallic sheen which reflect light and tempt one to take yet more photo's!

Baptisia australis

Baptisia
If you have trouble growing a flower that you're fond of, don't give up altogether but look around for another variety that might be more compatible with your soil or climate.

We managed to overcome the difficulty of raising lupins, which kept being eaten by snails, and turned to cultivating the perennial Baptisia australis instead.

Its blue pea-like flowers have given it the name 'False Indigo' and it's easily raised from seed.

These days you can get different coloured varieties, ranging from cream to yellow to apricot - very much like lupins really.

Our lettings cottage 'La Marée'
with magenta lychnis, blue larkspur and numerous pinks