Early June

"Every garden-maker should be an artist along his own lines.

That is the only possible way to create a garden,

irrespective of size or wealth."

- Vita Sackville West

Spires of foxglove and larkspur against a stippled background of red
geum, brushed with golden flecks of Stipa gigantea...

As beezy May slipped into sunny June, we mistook the lengthening days for the onset of summer - only to find that a few hours of intense heat inevitably gave way to more rainy squalls and cloud-filled skies. It looks as if our jet stream has got stuck again!

Christina lending scale to a
Lizard Orchid

We try and do a daily walk no matter what, in the hope that exercise will loosen those muscles for a spot of gardening later on.

As mentioned before, this unusually damp spring has enriched our meadows with wild flowers, including spectacular orchids like the one on the right which must have been a meter tall.

In previous years, these lizard orchids have been far less numerous in our chalky grassland, and less impressive at half the size.

Himantoglossum hircinum or Lizard Orchid

Viewed up close, you can appreciate the orchid-like maroon spots on its strange 'tentacles' - which might just be thought to resemble lizards.

Ammi visnaga 'Green Mist'
(available from Chiltern Seeds)

Elsewhere hedgerows are sprouting hefty umbellifers like hogweed, which may irritate the skin but are undeniably handsome architectural plants.

You certainly wouldn't want to pick any to take indoors but it's nice to cultivate your own type of cow parsley in the form of Orlaya grandiflora or Ammi visnaga, either of which can be used in a vase to complement other garden flowers.

Although easy to grow from seed, I find that Ammi visnaga is a bit too big and bushy for our small garden, although its green-tinged flowers do look good in a vase. Orlaya, on the other hand, fits perfectly with our loose style of cottage gardening and seeds itself quite easily.

Mixed Planting

Orlaya grandiflora co-habiting with geraniums,
yellow geum and phlomis

Foxgloves with aquilegia, gilded by panicles of
Stipa gigantea and interspersed with red Geum
chiloense 'Mrs Bradshaw'

Creating a tapestry in your garden may look random but relies on the experience of knowing which plants will grow best in certain areas. In the island bed above, partly shaded by a tall ash tree, are perennials and biennials suited to a woodland clearing where soil is dryish.

There is, however, enough direct sunlight for a single Stipa gigantea to flourish and cast its magic over the assembled party.

Phlomis russeliana with
Physocarpus opulifolius
'Lady in Red'

Another thing to bear in mind is that you want to have as much contrast as possible - in both colour and form - in order to showcase individual plants.

We recently started using the excellent dark- leaved Physocarpus opulifolius, even though I read that it's best suited to acid soils whilst ours actually contains a lot of chalk. (Home-made compost and leaf-mould will help to redress the balance when planting.)

So far, it's held its colour well and gets enough sunlight to keep the leaves nice and dark, with hints of bronzy-red.

Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace'

Sambucus nigra is another effective shrub for contrast and this variety, 'Black Lace', has finely cut leaves to create even more interest to the eye. Its pink blooms are a little at odds with our surrounding splashes of red geum - whose flowers have now been thinned out so they don't look too offensive!

Linaria purpurea 'Canon Went'

Teaming it with this delicate pink Linaria purpurea would probably be a better bet and we can easily move a couple of plants in autumn, or even grow some more from seed.

Cultivating perennials from seed, rather than simply filling a trolley at the garden centre, gives you more flexibility in choosing the right size/variety to suit your space. 

I'm always excited to see how my seeds turn out - usually better than imagined - and because it's quite cheap to produce several plants, there's less hesitation in pulling out or moving specimens which don't really work. Motto: Be ruthless and edit!

Geranium 'Ann Folkard' threading its pale leaves over a
purple sage, with small aquilegia flowering in front

Herbs, too, offer great scope for contrast in leaf colour and texture, particularly if you mix in the odd perennial. We find that Dianthus gratianopolitanus, with its magenta flowers and mat-forming grey-green foilage works well and can be trimmed back to a neat mound.

'Couscous' enjoys the warm stones surrounding our herb bed

A vase of contrasts, containing from L to R -
Ammi visnaga 'Green Mist'
Dianthus gratianopolitanus
Dianthus barbatus 'Sooty' (black)
Dianthus barbatus 'Homeland' (dark red with white centre0
Nicotiana alata 'Lime Green'
Anchusa azurea 'Dropmore'
and leaves of Cotinus coggygria in centre

Aside from the continus (smoke bush) which provides wonderful leaf colour, all other flowers were grown from seed sent by Chiltern Seeds in Wallingford.

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

Early April

"When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing..."

- Shakespeare, Sonnet 98

"La Minoterie" - the old flour mill at Les Monards

These early April days are some of the most eagerly anticipated in the calendar and each little rainstorm brings a new unfurling of leaves, adding yet another fine glaze of colour to the landscape.

Caltha palustris
Marsh marigold or kingcup

Here by our neighbour's lake, the gentler shades of weeping willow and dogwood are occasionally interrupted by the brash yellow of kingcups growing by the water's edge.

The Latin name caltha means "goblet" and palustris refers to the marshy areas where it thrives. Flowers are a similar colour to the buttercup but much larger, with an impressive clutch of stamens in the middle.

Shakespeare referred to them as "winking marybuds" for their reflective quality and there are now several cultivars listed in the RHS Plant Finder. A must for the water gardener and a useful way to stabilise riverbanks.

Amelanchier lamarckii

Around the lake in front of his mill, our neighbour Robert has planted a number of specimen trees, including this lovely Amelanchier or 'snowy mespilus', which lives up to its name with a soft coating of white blossom in April.

Amelanchiers can be grown as a shrub or small tree and were originally introduced from North America, although my book tells me that they have now naturalised on sandy soil in parts of southern England and the RHS has given the lamarckii variety its award of merit.

Amelanchier lamarckii
- downy buds and bronze-tinged leaves
create a lovely picture early in the year

Thanks to Robert's son, we're now growing one in our back border so that we can admire each stage of development in close-up.

Not only does it provide wonderful blossom but this is followed by red edible fruits, which turn purple-black in July - and the leaves, too, provide additional colour in autumn. What's not to like??

Damson jam?

First blossom on our brave damson tree!

Although the above 'twigs' may look less than impressive, we feel quite blessed to have got this far with a tree which nearly died on its journey from England. Some good friends brought it over in the back of their car, knowing how much we enjoyed damson jam, but sadly it suffered a case of sunburn en route and we didn't think it would survive.

Christina planted the poor thing in her shady 'hospital' area, trimmed off the dead bits and generally treated it like a patient in need of TLC. Two years later it's growing in the open sun and looking quite perky!

Viburnum sargentii 'Onondaga'
- just coming into leaf and bud

Viburnums

Now is the time when it pays to have some viburnum in your borders so that you can enjoy its vanilla-scented blooms.

There are many different cultivars and, as this picture shows, their leaves can also provide some subtle colouring.

In the case of 'Onondaga', its leaf starts out maroon and gradually turns green, while the tiny flower buds are also dark red and go on to produce dainty white blooms, resembling those of a small lacecap hydrangea.

Cerinthe major 'Purpurascens'
- a Mediterranean herb related to bora

Annuals like myosotis, nigella and cerinthe have generously seeded themselves all over our garden and in spring we find ourselves pulling up a lot of these flowers in order to make space for something new.

Cerinthe thrives in sunnier beds and can easily cover up other more delicate perennials with its thick, glaucous foliage and rather tough roots.

In some ways it's a pest but we keep a few because the colourful purple bracts hide tiny flowers which are surprisingly attractive to insects.

A planter (or raised bed) made to accommodate our
spreading acer and underplanted with bulbs.
- Note the matching seed table!

Tulip 'Lilac Wonder'

Bulbs in planters

Once you've filled up your beds and borders (as we have) it becomes difficult to find space for bulbs like narcissi and tulips which require a deep planting hole.

Add to that the fact that our soil is full of rocks and it becomes a back-breaking task to plant anything!

Tulip "Ballerina" with
"Apricot Emperor" in foreground

Christina has developed a useful skill in making her own planters with planks from the local woodyard (cheap) or recycling the old slats from Ikea beds (even cheaper). 
Once they've been treated with a coat of flat paint, they look positively stylish!

We also have a couple of heavy copper cauldrons ("chaudrons" in French) bought at local brocantes, which provide just enough depth for most tulips.

Planting is a lot easier when using compost rather than soil, but it's important to feed the bulbs after flowering otherwise they may not come back the following year.

The "Apricot Emperor" in this picture are but a pale reflection of what they were last spring, due to lack of feed, and some didn't flower at all.

Glechoma hederacea
or ground ivy

Wild flowers

On days when the wind is particularly cold, it's better to walk in woodland where you have some protection.

This little ground ivy is one of the earliest plants to catch one's eye: it's part of the dead nettle family and has blue to mauve pea-like flowers, with heart-shaped leaves.

Apparently it was once used as a bitter additive for beer when hops were not available!

Ophrys sphegodes
Early spider orchid

Out on the windswept downs, however, our first orchids have appeared: in this case the Early Spider Orchid (Ophrys sphegodes) with pale green foliage and contrasting brownish-maroon flowers.

A host of these orchids have suddenly popped up in one of the chalky meadows overlooking the estuary.

It's grazed by rabbits and I did find one flower stem that looked as if it might have been nipped off at the base, but on the whole I think they stick to munching grass... 

A kestrel hovers over grassland

Wind-scoured fields on limestone uplands