Alliums in May
I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that May is whizzing by all too quickly. I’m trying desperately, in amongst the general panic of too much to do-ness, to find time to stop and appreciate what is one of my most favourite times of the year. So I’m taking a quick pit-stop to write a bit about what May means to me.
May means:
– late night, torch-light fleecing at the plot
– an emptying greenhouse
– overflowing cold frames
– a car boot full of plants ready to be planted out
– the joy of the first alliums opening
– despair at discovering the first of many holes in my hostas
– forgetting AGAIN to do the Chelsea chop
– and, thereby resigning myself to a summer of staking and floppy plants
– pickings of stock Matthiola incana, the most intoxicating of scents
– panic that I haven’t sown enough and I’ve missed the boat for another year
– panic that I have sown way too much and where is it all going to go
– chive flowers in full bloom lining my fruit beds at the plot
– watering my plot at twilight to the sound of birds
– anticipation after spotting the first swelling fruits on my strawberries
– too many weeds
– the first rose on ‘Gertrude Jekyll’
– the smell of my warm greenhouse
– the miraculous sprouting into life of the overwintered twigs in a pot otherwise known as lemon verbena
– and finally the exhaustion that accompanies all of this. Everything comes at once and it all feels a bit relentless, but then I see the burgeoning garden and I pick some salad leaves, and I know why I do it. This is what keeps me going – along with tea and chocolate of course. Oh!, and the distant glimmer of hope that I might be able to sit down at some point soon. I’d love to know what May means to you.
Have a fabulous weekend everyone!
wellywoman 