Plants for late May

So much has come into bloom during May I can't keep up with it! Here are a few more plants that are blossoming and will probably last into summer.

Climbing hydrangea

This climber is by our front door and gives a beautiful display through summer. I love its big, broad blooms coupled with delicate sprouting smaller flowers. It still looks attractive when the heads fade back giving subtle autumn colour. The flower heads can also be picked and dried for flower displays. 

Foxgloves. I know you find foxgloves in the wild, but I love the 'cottagey' look they give to the garden and how they pop up in different places in the borders each year. You never know where you will find them next. We let them just get on with it and seed themselves where they fancy. It always guarantees a surprise for next year! 

 

Catmint. One of my favourites for good ground cover - saves a lot of weeding and gives a lovely blue, whispy summer's day look to the garden.

Valerian. With its fierce bright flowers this plant grows easily, even in paving cracks. We have it in a wild area amongst some blackberry bushes in a dry raised bed in the wall of the front garden and it has seeded itself amongst the plants in a shady, dry bed under conifer trees. It is a common wild plant, but there's always room for a wild plant or two in our garden if they can put on a colourful and vibrant display! 

This border is in a small, shady and dry patch underneath the conifer hedge and between the parking space on the front garden. It is looking lovely and probably at its best at the moment. It is a mix of low growing golden conifer shrubs, blue aquilegas, californian lilacs, blue cornflowers and in the foreground valerian. 

Just when the yellow marigolds have finished blooming by the pond, the golden irises have appeared. I love irises. 

The poppies are back again too in shades of scarlet red and peachy pink. They never disappoint and never fail to give a fabulous display. They need to be staked though or they will be squashed down with the rain. Thank goodness we managed to do that just in time with the weather we have had this week! 

Dianthus. This small little alpine flower grows easily anywhere around the garden. Its name means 'divine flower'. It does well in pots, troughs, raised beds or any little corner of a rock garden. 

First signs of the pink geraniums. These are another plant that are great for ground cover. They can be split and planted in pots and borders around the garden each season. They will be full of flower in June and continue flowering well into autumn if you dead head them now and again. 

In the foreground is a small weeping tree called a cotoneaster.  It starts to bloom with small white flowers at the end of May and looks at its best in June. After the flowers have finished they form small bright red berries, which give off another superb display in autumn and during winter. 

More of those foxgloves peeping out! 

French lavender, this one was a gift from a friend, another favourite plant of mine. It flowers before the other lavenders we have in the garden and heralds a taster of what is to come. It is a favourite with the bees too! 

A closer look at the delicate weeping cotoneaster flower.

Heuchera. I love these plants with their dark copper evergreen leaves and their panicles reaching for the sun, filled with starry delicate flowers. 

May has been a busy month in the garden. I enjoy May, whatever the weather really, as it feels like the start of summer. If we happen to get good weather there is that feeling of a long everlasting summer ahead; if it's bad, then you just think, 'oh well, there is still all summer yet for some better weather.' 

In the meantime the garden is still growing frantically whatever the weather is doing, getting it ready for you to enjoy the summer whatever! 

Pots and Baskets

May is always the time when I make up my summer pots and hanging baskets. Out go last season's pansies that have now finished and it's time to renew the baskets with annuals that will keep on growing and flowering right through the summer. 

I like to have an array of baskets and pots by the front door and around any seating areas in the garden. When I'm sitting out, I like the feeling of being hemmed in by a jumble of colourful pots, brimming with colour and being surrounding by scented pots and climbers. 

It is always tempting when you visit garden centres or markets to start buying the bedding plants early, especially as it may be nice weather. They often start putting them out in April. I have been caught out in the past in my early gardening days and how ever tempted I feel, I resist and wait until near the Spring Bank Holiday. There is always that risk of frost, which may harm or kill the new delicate plants. 

I tend to stick to a few tried and trusted plants that do well in the areas where I have my pots. I always buy begonias, as they grow easily, don't need much fuss and they enjoy the shade too, so can brighten a shady spot. They can give an instant impact with their assortment of pink and white colours.  I also love bright red and pink pelargoniums, which I enjoy as they tend to come at their best right through mid summer to late autumn and can brighten areas up when most plants have finished blooming. Again, as long as you dead head them now and again and keep them watered, then they are easy to grow. These are the main staple two plants I usually use. 

I like marigolds and petunias, but my marigolds always get eaten by slugs and my petunias seem to get too leggy and burnt out by August, so I've stopped planting those now. I like things to be kept easy! This year we've planted up some diascia, cosmos and the old favourite lobelia to complement the begonias and pelargoniums. 

I have some pots filled with perennials such as campanula and alpine pinks and I mix small evergreen plants, heathers, alpines and ivy amongst the bedding plants. The bedding plants and compost can be just changed over each season then, but there are some main plants that can be kept in the pots or baskets until they become too big. We have also taken to planting wallflowers in pots too as they always put on a good show and will flower for quite a few seasons. 

We have planted some small pots of cherry tomatoes, we always do this, it's nice being able to pick your own fresh tomatoes in autumn and just bring them in straight from the garden. One last favourite of ours are sweet peas - we always have these on our patio at the end of the garden. When they are flowering you can see wafts of colour at the top of the garden from the kitchen or conservatory windows. It is always lovely on a hot summers evening to sit out at the top of the garden, catch the last of the day's sun and the scent of the sweet peas in the light breeze! 

We will see how they all grow this year...

We've planted a variety of cosmos in pinks and white.

A view across the pots at the front of the house. 

That's another one made up and hung back! 

Cosmos and evergreen box plants.

A little bit of topiary and a newly planted manger.

Diascia and dianthus making a lovely show.

Alpine pinks, white dianthus, begonias and pelargoniums

White begonia and pale pink diascia

Terracotta pots with purple wallflowers, lobelia and alpines all ready to make a show! 

Sweet peas on the top patio

Little tray of cosmos and begonias. I like to place spare terracotta bits around the filled pots as a bit of a display. I know where they are then if I need a spare pot or two! 

Little wall display with alpines and begonias. 

That was a busy couple of gardening weekends, pots all done and ready now to enjoy the summer. We just need be rain to stop...but then again, they are well watered at the moment!