May Garden Tour

I've been too busy making curtains and building my website for blogging lately, but I couldn't resist just putting up a few snaps of our garden as it's full to overflowing with colour at the moment. These are my favourite geums and masses of self-seeded aquilegia.

My rose arch in the background, temporarily upstaged by a whole load of early bloomers. It takes some time and a fair bit of calculated neglect to create a garden as messy as this!

Down the garden path, past the barbecue and under the pergola to the back door. What a shame it's a scruffy old UPVC one - I'd really like a wooden stable door. I can dream, dreaming is free.

A bit of utility. Hopefully tomatoes to pick soon.

Some of the wisteria growing around our front door. It smells amazing at the moment and it's also really noisy with the constant hum of bees.

I love roses, especially the old fashioned sort. This is the first to flower. I never spray my roses so the leaves always look a bit tatty by the end of the summer, but they are as tough as old boots and don't seem to mind missing out on chemical pampering.

Finally, Romeo and Juliet, looking suitably romantic.

A Different Kind of Sowing

I pushed ahead with some seed sowing a few weeks ago, optimistically thinking that spring was just about to arrive. The tomatoes and chillies were started off on my kitchen windowsill, as my greenhouse is unheated. I've found that I have to sow chillies early to get a good crop before the weather turns cold again (usually in August!). I didn't bargain on this foul spring weather and although the tomatoes look ok the chillies are stunted and decidedly too chilly. I'm not holding out much hope for chilli jam this year.

These are dwarf zinnias that I sometimes grow to put in an old tin bath as an alternative to geraniums from the garden centre. It has to be a lot less plant miles to grow your own and disposing of the polystyrene packaging they are usually sold in doesn't seem that green either. Sadly the zinnias are also suffering from the cold and are now relieved to be back in the kitchen for a holiday.

Nature has been doing a good job of sowing seeds despite the cold and wet.

These are self sown forget-me-nots running riot in the bed I usually use for growing annual flowers for cutting. At least they keep the other less attractive weeds under control!

We also have bluebells which I didn't plant, I assume they must have been spread by birds?

I think they are the Spanish import type not the native English ones, but I'll let them off as they are still so pretty.

The Cirlce of Life

Sadly my father-in -law passed away at the beginning of April after suffering with leukaemia for some time. My dad died of the same wretched disease when I was barely out of university and setting sail for my adult life. Watching someone else eaten away by the same disease has brought back all the same feelings of anxiety - of how fragile life is - and how we should value those closest to us and live for today - something I have always struggled to do.