A Garden Walk at the End of May: Part One

 It was such lovely weather on Thursday, with a few clouds rushing across the blue sky in the strong breeze, but also with welcome bursts of warm sunshine in between. Perfect light for photographs in the late afternoon, and perfect for a tour of the garden.

Would you like to come?

Let’s go out onto the patio to begin…

My patio containers have a few annuals in them after being refreshed this spring… I hope to eventually find suitable perennials for them all that withstand both a freezing winter and a hot summer. A pinky red Achillea millefolium is already in flower and looks like it might be a candidate for dividing in autumn. Some Cosmos and Cleome seedlings are also in there. I hope the copper tape around the bases of the pots keep the slugs and snails at bay!

As we swing to the right we look across the bench to the top bed and small top lawn. The bench faces the morning sun when the rest of the patio is still in shade.

The small fence around the flower bed stops nosy doggies jumping after lizards etc!

There are lots of Aquilegia vulgaris here, and Veronica just starting to flower, which hides the remaining tulip foliage.

If we step forward a little we can look down the rockery…

… and see the Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber) just starting to flower. The white peony further down will soon be out too.

Back to the lawn and the top bed… the Alliums ( nigrum? and christophii) and this lovely hardy Gladiolus communis are the highlights right now.

Looking down the rockery on the west side from where the garden tap is, we can see Binocular Man keeping watch. The rusty frame bottom right supports the tall yellow Achillea that I gave up trying to move… it likes it there obviously! The grass in the middle of this photo is apparently a thug – Phalaris arundinacea, but I have been able to keep it in check so far…

Let’s step back on the other side of the lawn and look across towards the Acer – the tap near the Alchemilla mollis will help you orientate yourself.

The path down to the garden is a curved slope with wood chippings, lined on the left by Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Czakor’, Lysimachia and Golden Rod (Solidago canadensis, which seeded itself there), and on the right by the trees. There is a tiny bed just to the right (where the bell hangs, see previous picture) but it is extremely dry and hot there,so the Geranium phaeum is allowed to get the upper hand as it copes so well with those conditions.

On the way down we can look to the left across the west rockery… lots of aquilegias again!

At the bottom of the sloping path is The Professor, a little weather-beaten, with only one wing, but he has had a lot of work recently with strong winds most of this spring.

Let’s have a rest here… there’s a bench just behind us. I’ll take you on the second half of the tour tomorrow!