Look, I'm not sure who stole June....

...but can someone please give it back? I've learned such a lot this month...the most important thing being that it's the unexpected stuff that charms you the most, like the dandelions...

...and the poppies that turned out bright red instead of plum, and next door's doves basking...

I've done absolutely nothing in the garden this month except for pull a few weeds and watch all my un-staked perennials fall over majestically. I have stopped mowing the lawn because I love my dandelions too much to see them go, and I am idly watching the bindweed wend its merry way up anything vertical, turning the other cheek as day after glorious day it continues to be 'far too hot to garden'.

I have done a bit of bulb-shopping, (smugly clicking 'proceed to checkout' as I'm thinking ahead for once) - but that's not gardening is it...that's shopping. I've also been picking posies every day, and flowers for my salad in the same way that I've been grazing on fresh peas (my first!) and raspberries and strawberries, so I'm not going to call that gardening either.

I would like to tell you that the Babety is walking, but she seems to be taking it as easy as me. Here are my first new potatoes with a few chubby digits

Apart from setting aside a couple of hours to get on top of my dastardly (but rather beautiful) bindweed, I seriously plan on continuing this odyssey of laziness. I did work hard to get here, but that feels like a long time ago. Summer is for listening to the bees and breathing heady scent and walking out into the warm air at dusk...that's it.

In celebration of....

....Entrances Here are two I'm entranced by:

(sorry the picture quality is so awful...these were taken on my telephone)

How much do I love these two entrances?

VERY much is how much!

The one on the left was taken somewhere off the M3 motorway.  The little tiny crack of a flowerbed is planted with begonias and polyanthus..leading your eye to.....

yes! - a little plastic gnome-dog.  To the right (and sadly out of the picture) was a small bed of kniphofia...adorable.

There's a sort of careful thoughtfulness here that I find moving.

And the one on the right is a glorious orgy of Solanum (potato vine) and Trachelospermum (star jasmine), along with a little white climbing rose.  I love the abundance of it...of course x

A June offering

Here's a pot with the scent of summer inside it

A lovely, scented summer pot that will take you well into autumn. I've used a scented leaved pelargonium. I have no idea what it's called, but any scented leaved beauty will do. This is one of my favourites, with little delicate flowers and velvety leaves. I keep it fresh every year by taking cuttings. This one is a cutting I took very early this year in January. I love that about Pelargoniums - you can propagate pretty much all year round. I'll do a little how-to video of this as soon as I can persuade The Hunk to film me.

Lemon Verbena is one of my favourite plants ever...and if you're keen on scent, like me, then I urge you to go out and find one. It's the most lemony scented thing in the world, and a great thing for a pot. This one is a new plant that I bought in a tiny pot because I lost my old one in the harsh winter we just endured. If things hadn't been so horribly cold, I would have used the old one, which came back and back to delight me year after year.

You need: 1 scented leaved pelargonium 1 Lemon verbena plant 1 pot (mine is 30cm diameter) Multi-purpose compost

I don't feed it, or do anything complicated, just make sure it's watered...that's it.

You'll need to bring this inside when the cold weather arrives, and the pelargonium won't last forever in it's lovely leafy state, so it's best to take a cutting and start it again for next year. You can find out all about Lemon verbena and scented leaved pelargoniums by reading my eulogy to them in my book...but the long and the short of it is that you can use them for puddings, cakes and tea, and to freshen your breath, and just generally to brush past and enjoy for their delightful scent.

Rosy Corner

Pure self-indulgence...my favourite roses right now:

I wasn't going to buy this because the name is so unromantic (yes, I'm a sucker for lovely names...and see below)...but the lady who sold it to me was right - this is an unbelievably brilliant rose.  It has more blooms on it than all the others and the most wonderful scent.  A gorgeous creamy white on a compact shrub.

Here is Darcey Bussell.  If you follow me on Twitter you'll know that I've been raving about the fact that Darcey never has any aphids on her.  She's gorgeous, a typical David Austin rose with that lovely shallow 'champagne cup' bowl-shape and the most fabulous velvety deep red with yummy scent to boot.  I only have one of these...wish I had more.

Here is the delectable Mme Pierre Oger. She is a sport of Rosa Reine Victoria (a Bourbon rose), and actually more beautiful if that were possible. She has papery thin, almost translucent petals of pink, tipped with crimson. She flowers in clusters and repeats until late autumn. She is delicate in the extreme though, very prone to mildew and blackspot, - a bit like one of those unfortunate consumptive beauties in operas... so not one I am prepared to take on. This plant belongs to my mother and I have always loved and revered it since I was a child

This oh-so-gorgeous thing has an amazingly strong, sweet scent and repeats as if there were no tomorrow. I love the noisette flower form, like a very sexy person's un-made bed... and the pink within the folds....beautiful.

If this rose weren't so beautiful, the first thing you'd be asking would be 'where is Blairii No.1?' - instead, this is the second thing you ask, after 'Where can I get one'. I want this rose and I want it badly, so it's on my list for this autumn. Mr Blair was an amateur breeder who lived in 'the London suburbs' (whatever that means). He did raise a number 1, and a number 3. Apparently though, number 3 is lost and number 1, though reputedly better than Number 2, is very rare. Someone should go on a mission to find it I think. Anyway it's gorgeous isn't it, with it's slightly grey, moody tinge.

La Malmaison was the Empress Josephine's country house. Lovely, heady, fruity scent - sublime. This plant is in my mother's garden, and it has never ever opened properly. We love it anyway because the 'buds' are so beautiful, but I think actually it may have some sort of disease, especially when I look at the picture with the green stem-like bits in the centre of the bud...any ideas anyone?

I'm captivated with this lovely thing...every petal is different and the scent is out of this world.

I love the way this rose starts off looking like a Hybrid Tea and then opens up to look like a floribunda with these beautiful stamens in the middle. I've got two of these, and apparently they grow over two metres high...don't care in the least. The scent, by the way, is exquisitely sweet.

Look how yummy! - this is Eglantyne - a David Austin cracker of a rose that has just started coming out. I'm in love...seriously. Amazing scent, and I love the way it opens out in two different forms.

My first favourite rose. I had one of these around my front door at my last house. Lovely tea scent and gorgeous old fashioned looks.

And the best for last - Cecile Brunner - A polyantha rose and fondly referred to as 'The Sweetheart Rose' Masses and masses of flowers which, in bud are the sweetest things imaginable - like miniature hybrid teas, and then open up to become these beauteous little button-eye things. It's almost thornless and vigorous too. This one here, from my mother's garden, is the climbing form. It flowers continuously throughout the season. I WANT ONE....LIKE, NOW.

Good Edgers

Last week I tweeted excitedly that I was 'having my lawn edged' and suddenly realised that people might have thought I was getting a bikini wax.  I wasn't ...I was actually having my lawn edged.  This is something I should have done right at the beginning, when we first cut the new beds.  Back then it was hard to imagine that the grass would creep as fast as it did, - everything looked so tidy and straight and neat.  But that grass really has been testing me.  It comes back in the middle do of the beds, from tiny morsels that have been left there as we dug over the soil, but it also did this sort of inward creep, threatening to obliterate everything altogether.

Actually, I didn't mind it very much, because it made the garden look full, and bedded in, and sort of comfy - there were no bare patches of earth.  The problem was when I wielded the mower, and several times almost mowed over something precious like my erigeron or alchemilla - originally put there as edging, but which had sort of begun to 'mix' with the grass.

I started researching lawn edging, thinking I'd get someone to come and look after the babety and I'd ask the Hunk to help me one weekend...but soon realised that time was running away and I had to do something fast, so I called up my twitter friend Rob, who said he'd come and save the day by edging the lawn for me.  I am SO glad I didn't try to do it myself because it ended up taking much longer than anticipated.  The delightful Steve and Charlie from Rob's team worked like dawgs and just managed to get it done by working the whole day.

Now that my lawn has a wooden edging, it will be much easier to keep the creeping grass under control because there'll be a sort of 'no grow zone between the edge of the border and the grass...most excellent. Thank you Steve* and Charlie** - you were brilliant.

*Steve is originally from Australia but came over here to be near his daughter and grandchildren.  He used to play tennis pretty seriously, and recommends Rosa 'Radio Times'

**Charlie is also from Australia.  He likes coffee rather than tea (sorry, I'll remember that next time)

Things to do in June

....should you be so inclined:

1. Support all the plants that are about to fall over with pea sticks.  If you don't have pea sticks then consider letting them flop - it creates a certain, rather fabulous nonchalance that denotes you are uniquely cool....or you could do as I do and just gather them up to display indoors.

2. Water in the evening or early morning to conserve moisture and be efficient.  If you've got pots, then you're going to need to water twice a day if it's baking hot.

3. Order your tulips for planting in the autumn.  It seems ridiculous to be so organised, but if you want what you want, then you have to beat the rush.

4. Do some hoeing, with your sexy little hand hoe

5. If it's sunny, then be sure to laze around a lot.  The weather might turn any second, so drop everything and enjoy it

x

Nosy Corner: A family garden

Yesterday was a beautiful day.

Yesterday The Babety woke at 6.30am rather than 5am.

Yesterday I was not giving a 'talk'.*

Yesterday my Rosa 'Scentimental' came out.

Yesterday I went to this seriously yummy NGS garden opening.

I'm going to declare and interest here.  Jenny and Ricky Raworth's garden is one of my favourite gardens in the whole wide world.  This couple are totally nuts about their beautiful garden, but not to the exclusion of everything else (there are lovely daughters and grandchildren etc to be bonkers about too)...anyway, they always give superb garden opening.  Not only is the garden always spectacular, but both are always there to answer questions and show you round, and generally be seriously charming...oh, and there's another reason.  It begins with 'CA' and ends in 'KE'.

There are so many elements to this haven - a spectacular sunken area at the front, with masses of stone troughs planted up with alpines and semps, a conservatory packed full of Pelargoniums, the most sumptuous, deep beautiful borders bursting with scented loveliness, including massed Crambe cordifolia (of which I am hideously jealous), fantastic clipped hedges and a knot parterre.  They also have the MOST perfect lawn EVER.

Jenny says she never fed her Irises (here, Iris Jane Phillips), until this year, thinking they'd hate it, coming as they do from dry rocky 'bakey' type places.  But they've tripled in volume since she did...so feed away everybody.

Don't you just love the box cones - they look just perfect for leaning against with a morning paper.

Here (above right) is an extraordinary geranium.  It's called G. x oxianum 'Thurstoniuanum' and the petals are all rolled up - a bit like Tulipa acuminata

Above left is a spectacular Datura with some of Jenny's much loved Plectranthus and a lovely small person

Here, above is Jenny's favourite Poppy - it's deeper red than 'Pattie's Plum' and it's called 'Medallion'

...Here is Jenny, with a background of gorgeous R. 'Constance Spry'

And here is the Babety in one of my old dresses, made by my granny.

Every time I visit, it's thrilling because there's always something new, but more than that, there's this lovely feeling of happiness and family which you can't learn, or buy or fake.  Yes, I'll take that Papaver, and the room full of pelargoniums, and that passion for plectranthus and the perfect lawn, and that extraordinary geranium, and the massive crambe but more than that, I want the feeling....  Trust me to want to copy something indescernible rather than an actual thing....typical.

Apart from urging you to visit Jenny and Ricky's garden, which you can do in July (see here for details) here's a plug for Jenny's garden days which are brilliant.

Here's my friend Anni with lovely lemony cupcakes

Nosy Corner...a family garden and something understood

Yesterday was a beautiful day.

Yesterday The Babety woke at 6.30am rather than 5am.

Yesterday I was not giving a 'talk'.*

Yesterday my Rosa 'Scentimental' came out.

Yesterday I went to this seriously yummy NGS garden opening.

I'm going to declare and interest here.  Jenny and Ricky Raworth's garden is one of my favourite gardens in the whole wide world.  This couple are totally nuts about their beautiful garden, but not to the exclusion of everything else (there are lovely daughters and grandchildren etc to be bonkers about too)...anyway, they always give superb garden opening.  Not only is the garden always spectacular, but both are always there to answer questions and show you round, and generally be seriously charming...oh, and there's another reason.  It begins with 'CA' and ends in 'KE'.

There are so many elements to this haven - a spectacular sunken area at the front, with masses of stone troughs planted up with alpines and semps, a conservatory packed full of Pelargoniums, the most sumptuous, deep beautiful borders bursting with scented loveliness, including massed Crambe cordifolia (of which I am hideously jealous), fantastic clipped hedges and a knot parterre.  They also have the MOST perfect lawn EVER.

Jenny says she never fed her Irises (here, Iris Jane Phillips), until this year, thinking they'd hate it, coming as they do from dry rocky 'bakey' type places.  But they've tripled in volume since she did...so feed away everybody.

Don't you just love the box cones - they look just perfect for leaning against with a morning paper.

Here is an extraordinary geranium.  It's called G. x oxianum 'Thurstoniuanum' and the petals are all rolled up - a bit like Tulipa acuminata

Here is a spectacular Datura with some of Jenny's much loved Plectranthus and a lovely small person

Here, above is Jenny's favourite Poppy - it's deeper red than 'Pattie's Plum' and it's called 'Medallion'

...Here is Jenny, with a background of gorgeous R. 'Constance Spry'

And here is the Babety in one of my old dresses, made by my granny.

Every time I visit, it's thrilling because there's always something new, but more than that, there's this lovely feeling of happiness and family which you can't learn, or buy or fake.  Yes, I'll take that Papaver, and the room full of pelargoniums, and that passion for plectranthus and the perfect lawn, and that extraordinary geranium, and the massive crambe but more than that, I want the feeling....  Trust me to want to copy something indescernible rather than an actual thing....typical.

Apart from urging you to visit Jenny and Ricky's garden, which you can do in July (see here for details) here's a plug for Jenny's garden days which are brilliant.

*I've been having a sheet-eating moment...you know, the kind of awful feeling when you've either done something really horribly stupid or you've embarrassed yourself beyond what is normally laid to rest with a glass of wine and a cuddle from someone lovely who will pat you kindly and tell you it's not that bad.  Sheet-eating is what happens when the magnitude of the hideousness means that you wake up the next morning and IT is the first thing you think about, and IT is so stomach-knottingly sickening that you want to scream, but that would wake everyone up, so you bite down on the nearest thing to you, which is usually a sheet of some description.  Then all through the next day, and the next, you keep thinking about it and each time it happens you feel like you're about to be a bit sick in your mouth...

The source of my pain was a 'talk' I was very sweetly asked to give at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival with the brilliant Richard Reynolds.  I'd never done anything like that before, so I was 'healthily' nervous, but nothing out of the ordinary.  And then about five minutes in, this small voice said very clearly

"Why are you here? - can't you see they're all laughing at you?'.

It got louder and louder and, well, I totally dried up...no no no, I actually want to emphasise this so it's clear: I LOST COMMAND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE - literally nothing would come out...noTHING.  I started sweating profusely, managed to mumble something that sounded like an end, and sat down.  What I wanted to do was run, scoop up the Babety and The Hunk and run out of there, and be violently sick, and just basically DIE on the spot.

It's all a bit puzzling really, because I usually tell that sort of voice to shut up.  Why, at this moment I let it gag me is a mystery - (did I hear someone titter?...I think I did...) - anyway, it makes my throat ache rather, because it takes me back to another time, and a twelve-year-old me, and a crippling shyness that had me muzzled, shackled, practically unable to breathe for a good few years until the sudden, (miraculous) realisation that I actually had a choice meant that finally I was able to set myself free.  I don't know what on earth made me feel so twisted up at that time, but I do know that I want to make it so my daughter never ever has to feel that way.  This re-visit to those days has made me realise how little control I will have over her future happiness.  All I can hope for is that she will be more intelligent (or perhaps that she will be slightly stupider than me) and consequently either know that paralysis from shyness is get-out-able-of-able or that she is a perfect, gorgeous person, who feels entitled to happiness no matter what.

Ach, I know I know...it'll fade....I know it doesn't really matter what thirty strangers think of me...I know all that....and yes, I'm painfully aware that this whole silly rant could be summed up with a #highclassproblem hashtag....And yet..and yet...

Bleurgh, shut up.

x

Free babies

If you follow me on Twitter (or run a nursery) you'll know that I like to shop for plants, often entering the shop (on-line or otherwise) fully believing that I'm only after one thing, and then 'accidentally' ending up with a bulging basket.

I was about to have one of my legendary accidents at Dibleys, who sell, amongst other things, one of my favourite plants, Streptocarpus (Cape Primrose).  They are truly exquisite plants, perfect for indoors, that come in a myriad of colours and sizes and seem to flower for ever and ever on these lovely boingy thin stems that shoot up out of a thicket of thick hairy leaves.  I can't resist buying them whenever I see them, simply because there are so many different ones and I like to collect.  Here's one I picked up on a trip to the garden centre the other day.  Sorry, can't remember its name and the label soon disappeared into my label bag (more of which one day soon).  Anyhow, I was about to have this massive accident but was cruelly stopped in my tracks by horrid old paypal who think i don't have enough money...(they are right, I don't)....I was about to turn to The Hunk with pleading eyes and then decided to be sensible and thrifty AND have fun all at the same time and take some leaf cuttings, for FREE plants and a sense of achievement all at the same time.

All you need to take leaf cuttings of streptocarpus are:

1. A sharp knife (I use my incredibly chic Leatherman Tool)

2. A clean board

3. Some cuttings compost (I use seed compost mixed with a handful of horticultural grit or, if I have it, pearlite.

4. A seed tray

5. Some sort of covering (I use a plastic seed tray lid, but a plastic bag or piece of glass is fine)

Method:

Fill your seed tray almost to the top, and firm down the contents gently.  Then Choose a nice, healthy leaf and cut it off the plant at the base.  Lay it up-side down on your board and cut along the central vein on either side.  the idea is you want to cut through all the veins that come from the central one.  Out of these, will miraculously appear new plants...amazing.

When you've done your cutting, this is what you should be left with:

Discard that central vein and now place your leaf halves, cut side down, into two little trenches in your seed tray.  Firm the compost around the leaf cuttings so that those cut veins are sure to be in contact with the growing medium.  Depth-wise, I put my leaf cuttings in so they're only just buried....I'm not sure how the experts do it.

Now put the whole thing in the sink in a sort of 'bain marie' and leave it so that it can suck up some water.  Frightfully important not to let it get completely saturated though, otherwise your babies will rot.

And now all that's left is to cover it with your plastic or glass to keep the moisture from evaporating, and put it somewhere near a window, out of the way.  You'll need to be patient, and keep checking to make sure it doesn't get too dry.  I also take the cover off once a day to get the air circulating.  You should have some babies within a couple of months.  wait till they're about 5 cm long before you remove them from their mother.

Tree from Heaven

Everybody! - how beautiful is this tree?

I know the roses sort of don't look real but I promise you it's a genuWINE photo. Someone has let this gorgeous bright scarlet rambler rose romp up their tree, and it looks like the whole plant IS a rose. One of those serendipitous things that happen, because I honestly don't think you could make a rose do this as perfectly as it does here.

Best if you click on the images - they look much better surrounded by black.

Hey!, it's the end of May!

When I started this garden I had this mantra going round in my head...it said:

I will have this garden up and blooming by May

...and (squeal!) I think I've done it!...

Like, I've had a picnic on the lawn and it feels like I'm in a real live actual proper garden.  I love it, and I've made loads of schoopid  mistakes (including forgetting to stake anything so it's all falling over, planting things too far apart, or not close enough together...the list is endless.

It's been an interesting year, in which my life has been completely turned upside-down by a small bundle of chub called the Babety. It's hard to remember what things were like before she arrived, and I am constantly amazed by how something so small could wield such extraordinary power. When she was born in May last year, I was still living in a flat and gardening in my kitchen and on my balcony. I thought we were fine...I was blissfully happy, but then suddenly, and without warning, in the arctic freeze of December, I woke up one morning (or perhaps I had been up all night with the babety)..anyway, I howled loudly that we were going to have to move, because I needed a garden...and fast.

Looking for houses, buying houses, leaving houses and moving to new houses is not high on my list of happy stuff to do with ones time. It's a funny, wrenching thing to get involved with, laying yourself open to elation and disappointment in equal measure in the buying and selling...and then having to say goodbye to somewhere you've been for many years, somewhere you know intimately - I suppose I'd liken it to a love-affair that comes to an end, by mutual consent, with much sadness, but an admission that you're not good for each-other any more.

We arrived at our new house on the 11th February this year. It was getting dark when we finally got in, and the boxes, and feeling of rootlessness, and of not knowing where the nappies were was quite unbearable. This is when you're so very thankful for family support, and you blush with shame to think of how horrid you were to your mother and father for so long....and you thank goodness you have a fabulous Hunk to be marvellous and wonderful on so very many levels. I put the babety to bed, set up my kitchen dresser and felt somewhat comforted. The next day I walked out into the garden...this funny-shaped, green space that I'd only seen twice and had fallen in love with. Out there, wrapped up in all those jumpers and coats, with a steaming mug of tea, I stood with a feeling of utter bewilderment and also a guilty naughtiness..as if I wasn't supposed to be here - as if I had stolen it from someone more deserving. (BTW, I still get snatches of that guilty feeling...so odd).

I've made the beginnings of a garden...(yes, that's what I call it)...a garden. I've made it relatively quickly, with wonderful help from family and friends, planting everything in snatched hours while the Babety is sleeping. I've managed to do it because I've changed as a person since becoming a parent. Lack of ruminating and cogitating time has meant that now I make decisions really fast...I don't agonise any more. If I had more time to think about this garden, it would still, I promise you, be in the planning stage. Instead, lack of time has made me reckless, and recklessness seems to have worked so far. Things just literally get bunged in and I cross my fingers and hope for the best.

There's so much more to be done, of course..and a book to be written - but I'm celebrating my May milestone in the spirit of observing some very precious advice someone once gave me, which is that the future is really none of my business, the past has happened and no longer exists, and all that matters is right here, right now, so enjoy it.

xxx

...Get ready for your close-up

Everything suddenly happens at once...

What richness! - Today, in this heatwave, all this lovely stuff has happened:

Kolkwizia amabilis 'Pink Cloud'...MUCH treasured and something I've been SO excited about seeing...has POPPED!  Thanks little bush.

And then the iris bonanza:

First this:

...then these two later on in the day...

...and then...INTAKE OF BREATH...

my first geranium flower...such an amazing blue...and such veins - I am over the moon to see it.  I'm hoping to see a sea of this very soon because I've properly spread it about.

and lastly, this:

It's my first rose (I'm welling up right now)...I've been squishing the aphids off it for weeks, and it's emerged unscathed, smelling sweetly but with that wonderful citrus 'choke'.... this is pure white and almost blindingly eye-drawing but who the hell cares?  I'm absolutely un-done by it.

My first posies

One of the most exciting things about having more space to garden is the prospect of more picking opportunities.  I designed the space with four raised beds for a crop-rotation-system vegetable plot but very soon realised there was no way I was ever going to be organised enough to stay on top of things on that score, and that flowers were just as nourishing to me as vegetables, so I set aside two of the raised beds for my Picking Patch.

One of these I planted up, roundabout style, with bedding seedlings from the garden centre - Dianthus barbatus, Cosmos sonata and some snap-dragons... It really did make me laugh when I'd finished planting it up...it looked exactly like the rows of polyanthus that get laid out in lines every year in my local park.  But you know, it's okay, because the flowers are blooming, and  the other day, I cut a few and put them in a pretty jug, and I'm beyond thrilled because there's going to be so much more of it, for ages and ages.  It doesn't look like much right now, but when I've filled in the gaps with more (home-raised) seedlings I think it'll be gorgeous in its own right.  If you're salivating over the jug, by the way, (lovely isn't it?) then you can get them (and lots of other glorious ceramics) from Christina Gascoigne, here...she also made the teacup below that's playing host to my sweet rocket.

The other raised bed I sowed with hardy annuals - Cornflower, nigella, ammi majus and stock.  I'm carefully, murderously, thinning these out (with the help of some kindly slugs) and hope that this will look utterly spectacular very soon (if the whole lot doesn't get nuked by creatures).

These picking patches are just there to fill out what I'll be pilfering from the rest of the garden.  I find it impossible to leave well alone, and have been filling vases with anything that's around....so:

I picked this, minus the dicentra for the Babety's birthday  two weeks ago....it's still lovely even though it's going to seed, but then, as Miss Pickering states so wisely, longevity is highly overrated....here's some luscious detail...

If you're wondering about the gorgeous little jug, it was a present from Annabel Ridley, who does brilliant glass engraving...you can find her stuff here.

Here's some of that glorious Epimedium I was going on about before.  (Epimedium x youngianum 'Niveum') ... I love the way the flowers dance on their boing-y stems whenever I breathe on them.  I have this by my bed, and often take it to the bath with me.

Here it is in macro-lense magic:

Then of course there's the Catmint - Nepeta is its latin name and called Catmint because cats adore it.  I have a troupe of neighbourhood felines who hang in my garden all day to be near to it.  I'm not overly keen on them, just love the Nepeta, so I'm willing to put up with them and throw their poo away...and honestly, they were hanging out here before I planted the stuff.  I have two types of Nepeta, N x faassenii 'Six Hills Giant' which edges my bee border, and a smaller kind, N. mussinii which gets rather squished by the cats lying on it.  Both are gorgeous, especially if you really look at the flowers, which resemble  (to me) the faces of fat sopranos belting out Wagner:

...see what I mean?

Well, okay then, but it looks delectable in a vase with a little sprig of Choisya 'Aztec Pearl' (Mexican Orange Blossom)

(That little girl is my mother, by the way)

But that's not all...I've discovered Hesperis (Sweet Rocket) in a major way after I bought a whole lot of perennials on offer at the garden centre.  The flowers are the most wonderful purple and they smell yum.  Here are a couple of sprigs in a teacup - but of course, they can be eaten, along with the leaves, in salads.

I grow heaps of herbs, and they need cutting to keep them coming.  My herb patch is NOT just outside my back door like it's supposed to be, but a little way down the garden (too far if you're in spiky heels and it's pelting with rain), so I pick a big bunch of everything and have it in the middle of the table, and harvest from that....here's some parsley in a beautiful jug.

Sweet Cicely for Custard

Shhhh! - The Hunk absolutely hates custard so I've had to do this in secret - It won't be difficult to keep it a secret because I think it'll all be gone soon (this stuff is sluttily drinkable).

I inherited two large clumps of Sweet cicely when I moved here in February this year.  Its latin name is Myrrhis odorata and it's of European origin.  This is one of the first herbs to appear in springtime, and it lasts for yonks.  It has gorgeously pretty fern-like foliage and lovely white flowers that smell like seriously posh, delicate honey.

The taproot can be eaten raw or steamed and tastes of an aniseedy parsnip (hmmm)...The leaves have a sweet aniseedy flavour and they can be used as a sugar substitute.  The seeds are also lovely and sweet...I'm going to be experimenting with all that later, but today I just wanted to get my head around the flavour of it, so I made custard and infused the milk with a few leaves and some flowers.

The recipe is from the fantastic Prue Leith whom I utterly revere (and not only because she owns Elizabeth David's actual kitchen table...heart flutters).  Her book is indeed a cookery bible.  I had got myself all geared up to be beating madly in a double-boiler but found, with a sigh of relief, this recipe for quick, easy custard which doesn't require any of that faffing:

It's really easy, just one egg yolk, whisked with one ounce of caster sugar until pale and interesting:

Then one ounce of plain flour gets beaten in vigorously.  Meanwhile I'd scalded eight fluid ounces of milk with a few Sweet cicely leaves and half a flower-head:

I strained it, poured it into the egg yolks, whisking all the time, and then put the whisked mixture back into the saucepan, heating until it boiled, at which point it thickened perfectly, coating the back of the spoon (and my finger, and my tongue...etc).

It tastes divine - slightly liquoricey (but NOT in a horrid, hectic, fishermans-friend-type-way)  I purposefully didn't use a vanilla pod because I wanted to taste the plant, and I'm glad, because although it's distinct, it is delicate.  It's not overly sweet either.  I think that's because this was just an infusion.  I think this would be yummy with rhubarb, and I'd probably add a good generous handful of sweet cicely leaves into the stewing liquid, as they are renowned for their usefulness in sweetening tart fruit.  You're supposed to be able to reduce the amount of sugar you use by half...good news.  This little jug though, won't wait that long...it has 'drink me' written all over it.

To grow Sweet cicely, you need light, well-drained soil.  It spreads itself around in a rather naughty manner if it's happy in your soil, both by self-seeding and via its very long tap-root that, if broken, will produce another plant.  It wants some light shade but other than that, requires absolutely no TLC whatsoever.  I'm completely in love with it and I think if I didn't have a garden, I'd want to grow one in a pot.  You'd need a deep pot, because the taproot is long, and you'll need to keep it properly watered.

Do let me know if you've got any recipes - I'd love to try them out.

Wisteria reveries

It's hard not to notice those tumbling racemes all over the place right now.  Of course I MUST have one instantly, and it must be like this one above which happens to be  at Hermannshof in Germany.  Unfortunately I don't have this kind of meandering woodland walk experience, so I decided (in my infinite silliness) to create my own standard one.  This will start its life in a large pot, and then hopefully get planted somewhere prominent in the garden (depending on how fabulous or un-fabulous I manage to make it).  I'm madly reading up on how to do this, and will be starting this weekend once I've sourced my chosen plant.  But wait, I do have walls too - so I think I'll get another and do the wall thing, hoping to end up with something akin to this beauty at Pashley Manor:

In the meantime, here are some wonderful examples of wisteria that I've found over the last few days on my travels:

This is just up the road from me - someone's let their plant go nuts in a really big photinia-like-thing with some other red-leaved beauty (I'll identify someday)...it so shouldn't work, but it does.

Sorry about this picture - I naughtily took it while I was in a traffic jam - but this is the perfect example of how laziness pays off - this wisteria has romped through this huge tree and the effect is utterly exquisite.  Any attempt to prune it would be utterly preposterous...(yay!)

Here's a very well-behaved wisteria, slowly but surely clothing its wall.  It's gorgeous, but once I started really looking, it became very easy to tell the difference between Chinese (Wisteria sinensis) and Japanese (Wisteria floribunda).  The Chinese, whilst wonderfully prolific, is stubbier than the Japanese, which often has really long racemes and looks that bit more elegant.  Actually, as long as it flowers, I'd be thrilled with either, but if I can I'm going to try and source something called Wisteria macrobotrys (known as 'Multijuga').  It has hugely long racemes and I have fallen stupidly in love with it.

Here's a gorgeous specimen that (joyfully) lives next door.  Jane tells me that it's never flowered so well as this year.  I love the way they don't prune it too tidily...you want abundance (or at least, that's what I want).

There are quite a few white forms, and having had a good nose around, I've noticed that the colour of the background really really matters here (don't go there if you have yellow bricks)...but my goodness it's lovely when it works - even though it's a bit 'tasteful' to have it, (I mean, how silly, when you could have yummy purple!) - I still think it's gorgeous.  I love the way the racemes are literally draping themselves over the window-frames here...abundance!

Lilac wisteria...I just can't find a flattering photograph of it anywhere (and I've seen LOTS of it lately)....I think it's because the leaves on the ones I've seen have all been this ochre colour (not good).

Here's the beginnings of a standard Wisteria at my local garden centre.  The price tag is £250 (instant faint)...but it's rather yum isn't it...the how-to on making a standard isn't difficult...this could be a rather good way to make money.

Here's a close-up of my floribunda dream

Wisteria are not at all fussy about soil.  As long as it's fertile they'll be happy.  They do, however, need some sun to flower (there has been a two week delay in flowering for North-facing wisterias around my area, and they're not nearly as abundant as their south-facing cousins).  They do need some careful pruning though in order to flower properly - and I'll be researching this, probably about a nano-second before the end of June when I'm supposed to be doing it.

A May Birthday for a Baby

If you're prone to lurking on Twitter or Facebook, you'll probably know it was the Babety's first birthday the other day, and we celebrated today with a May picnic which would have been TOO perfect if the weather had played ball...but it didn't, so it was just right (phew).

There were many, many presents (I don't think you ever get that many presents again do you?...thank you wonderful gorgeous godparents!)...and good friends, and laughter.

...and there was chocolate cake (made with love by MOI) from a recipe by the brilliant Jo Weinberg from her book How To Feed Your Friends With Relish.  Lucky I got a picture of it because the whole lot was eaten instantly, which probably had something to do with the fact that it contains THREE blocks of best chocolate (two melted and one cut into gravelly chunks that you get inside the sponge and it melts on your tongue and is like heaven) and two whole blocks of butter....ho hum...  Here it is in all its glory, with crystalised violet and pink petals left over from last month (see my recipe for these here) and those lovely shiny silver sugar orbs.  A real joy to make ...me, pots and pans, radio 4 and peace...bliss (I miss baking regularly because my garden shouts at me for attention).

I also made a new jug of lilac syrup and concocted some rather yummy, alcoholic, (strictly for grownups) jelly which was so blush-inducingly successful that I'm going to put it in my next book...here's a sneaky peek:

If you've got any birthday party images, do post a link to them here in the comments - I'd love to see them.

A little bit spikey, a little bit soft, and a little bit Alys...

...My May One-Pot-Wonder is inspired by some utterly beautiful little Salvias I saw yesterday at my local garden centre.  I bought three of these little lovelies (always buy three of everything, unless it's Jimmy Choos, in which case you want three different pairs)...anyway, where was I?...Ah yes, the salvias - so prettily spikey and violetey blue.  I also came across one lonely Geranium - the last one left, and I just had to rescue it.  When I got home I put all this in a pot with some hairy-soft silvery helichrysum (the mini-version)...perfect....but then I remembered the utterly gorgeous Alys Fowler who I'm watching avidly on telly doing her thing and as an homage I stuck in a pea seedling with a willow stick:

I know, the photo is pants - I just can't seem to get the essence of it - here are some close-ups:

So: here's what's in my pot:

1 Salvia nemerosa 'Ostfriesland'

1 Helichrysum microphyllum 'Silver Mist'

1 Geranium Kashmir Purple

1 Pea seedling

Some sort of support (I used willow peasticks)

The pot is 30 cm diameter and I used ordinary peat-free multi-purpose compost with some fertilizer granules thrown in.

Things to do in the garden in May.......

...should you be so inclined:

1. For goodness sake don't work too hard...your garden will always look lovely as long as you are having a lovely time IN it.

2. Mow the lawn (yawn)

2. Plant summer-flowering bulbs, corms and tubers (dahlias, acidanthera, gladioli...the list is endless)

3. Become a regular hoe-er and nuke little weedlings before they take hold.  Buy yourself a nice sexy hand-hoe and a cushion so you can get properly intimate with them

4. Sow salad leaves in any spare patches of ground or in pots

All good things, always,

Plant gorgeosity:

Epimedium x youngianum 'Niveum' ...a little darling and a complete impulse buy the other day, when I was only supposed to be window shopping....makes my heart sing:

...terrible photo....but the butterfly flowers kept bobbing up and down in the breeze (a good reason for a bad photo).  Will replace with a better one tomorrow...promise x