Sunnyside in May

Sunnyside is in bloom on this the last day in May.  This afternoon has been spent moving a few plants around to alleviate overcrowding and to fill out the new borders which are looking a little sparse.  The nepeta walkers low has gone crazy this year and is permanently buzzing, and we are overrun with euphorbia oblongata, three of which you can see rehomed in the new borders.  I have also rehomed the clematis tubulosa and some white asters which were covering an almost dead salvia, now breathing again in a more generous space.  I seem to have planted everything too close together last year so now that the plants are maturing they are fighting with one another for space.  But that strategy seems to work rather well when you are extending the borders and in need of new plants to fill the space.  The roses are just beginning to open, Paul's Himilayan Musk is beginning to break out into bloom, as is Compassion.  Any day now the pergola is going to erupt all over in colour and fragrance.  Rosa Susan is really blooming her socks off this year.  She was a very poorly rose last year and I wondered if she would survive her extreme black spot (perhaps more aptly named black rash), but this year has fared much better, possibly due to a regular drenching in a heavily diluted apple cider vinegar solution.  

Rosa Susan

Recycling

One of my favourite milestones in the gardening year is dead-heading the first lupins.  As the flowers start to fade at the bottom and begin producing seed pods, the tops of the flowers remain gloriously resplendent.  A good old cull of these older flower spikes encourages continuous flowering, and (once stripped of their lower portions) produces many vases worth of beautiful blooms for adourning my bathroom.

Seven years at Sunnyside

Today is the seventh anniversary of the day in which the hammer went down on Sunnyside, and we became the owners-in-waiting of this amazing place.  What a day that was, and what a long way we have come in those seven years.  I sometimes look outside and feel overwhelmed by the amount of work still to do, but it's very grounding to look back at some of the old photos to see the huge amount of progress that we have made since that lucky Friday 13th.  This is how the garden is looking today.

Digging up nettles

Another joyous day in the garden as the jetstream heads north leaving the country bathed in sunshine.  Our lovely neighbours Ron and Bar invited us for lunch so that we could spend the most part of the day in our garden.  Mark began preparing the patio area for Geoff who is coming to build a retaining wall, lay a patio and build a garage in a few weeks time while I dug up a few barrow loads of nettle and bindweed roots in the border to the left of the picture.  If this weather keeps up in a week or two this job will be far more hazardous (even today I managed to get bitten on the bum), so the job is well timed.  As a reward for my efforts I have treated myself to an online plant order, and will think of little else until it arrives.  And with all this feel of Spring in the air, I might pay a visit or two to Millbrook this week as they are having a 2 for 1 offer on hardy perennials. 

The Beech Hedge

Incredibly we survived the storm on Friday night without a single tree down, although Ron and Bar's TV aerial wasn't so lucky.  Ron was up his ladder this morning to fix it - he's still pretty spritely for 84!  But today has been very different, dry, still and above all, gloriously sunny.  As today is forecast to be the best day for some time to come, we all dosed up on some much needed vitamin D and crammed in as much gardening as daylight hours would permit.  I finished de-turfing the long border this morning, then we all helped dig a trench to plant the beech hedge.  Nice feeling to end the day, beautiful straight row of beech saplings which will one day grow up into a lovely bushy hedge.  Now for a cup of tea.

The winter collection

Last spring I bought a small collection of winter flowering plants.  Still being babies and only just in bloom, they are not quite knock-your-socks-off plants, but it still gives me a thrill to see their little flowers venturing out into the cold. 

Hamamelis intermedia magic fire

Vibernum bodnantense Dawn

Sarcococca hookeriana humilis

Favourite things

The snowdrop is my all time favourite flower.  I say this with a slight tinge of guilt because I would have liked my favourite flower to be a native.  England has so many glorious native flowers which often get overlooked in favour of their more showy garden competitors.  But the snowdrop has something special.  When the darkness of winter is begining to get you down and the pleasure of a warm sunny day seems such a distant memory, the little snowdrop emerges coyly from the soil, instantly lifting the spirits.  It has a simplicity, a delicacy and a purity that surpasses any other plant I know. 

The snowdrops in our garden are beginning to swell and open, and this afternoon I captured them bobbing their heads in the breeze under a welcome ray of sunshine.  The helebores too are begining to bloom, reminding us that despite all this gloomy weather, Spring is only just around the corner.