Darling buds of May

Wisteria and euphorbia

As a very dry May draws to a close, a few warm and sunny days are being followed by a couple of duller, cooler and extremely windy ones; the "rough winds" are indeed shaking the darling buds of May.  There was a welcome downpour last night, welcome not only to the gardener who has been carrying watering cans round the garden recently but also to the plants, many of which have been blooming strongly this month as the garden gets into its stride.

It has been the best year I can remember for the wisteria; it looked great, and at its peak the scent could be detected all over the garden, even at the other side of the house.  A Euphorbia characias has seeded at its feet and has been providing complementary blooms; no scent of course, but a great attraction for visiting bees.  (What it means for the nerines, which are also growing at the base of the wisteria and which are completely swamped by the euphorbia, may be another matter.)  There are already new tendrils curling out of the wisteria; I must remember to prune them this summer, as correct pruning really makes a difference to this plant.

The cistus is also blooming well, but I'm steeling myself to remove it soon as there are all sorts of nasty weeds (couch, ground elder, self-sown cotoneasters) in there.  I've been trying to take cuttings from it so that it can be replaced (it's a fussy plant, and digging it up and replanting is not a safe option), but the strike rate hasn't been good, and I'm not sure whether the sole survivor in the cuttings pot will make it through.

This is 'Angelique' ...

... and this isn't!

This year's tulips have been a bit of a mixed bag.  As usual, I kept some of last year's bulbs to plant for this year, but it's clear that putting old bulbs in pots doesn't give good results; of the oldies, only 'Orange Emperor' turned out well, with the rest either not flowering or producing a few poor-quality blooms and unhealthy-looking leaves.  Nothing looks good with tatty leaves.  I'm discarding all of last year's bulbs, and will try some of this year's ones in the ground (if I can find a place for them!) for next year.  If they don't flower, nothing will be lost.  A few old bulbs from previous years still flower in a corner of the veg plot - mostly 'Couleur Cardinal' and a single 'Angelique' - and this proved instructive, because I also grew a bagful of new 'Angelique' bulbs in a pot.  At least these were supposed to be 'Angelique', but instead of the lovely clear pink and white I was expecting, they were an apricoty-yellow; very pretty, and I liked them, but I'm convinced they weren't 'Angelique'.  I had decided to broaden my horizons a little when buying bulbs last autumn, rather than just keeping to my old favourites, and bought some 'Artist' to try them, but I'm afraid the flowers never developed properly and they've now fallen; I wonder if they got too dry?  Interestingly, I had failed to clear out one of last year's pots and, to my surprise, up came a clutch of 'Silver Parrot' which I had planted last year but which did nothing; they did quite well this year.  Maybe I'll put 'Artist' out in the garden and see if it will do likewise next year!  The tulip highlight, though, was a potful of 'Ballerina'; I'm still unable to detect its alleged scent, but they were tall, graceful and long-lasting.  They're supposed to prove perennial in the ground; I'll give it a go.

Tulip 'Ballerina'

Other May bloomers include the aquilegias (including a few squatters in the veg plot, which I really must move this year!), the choisya, alliums, Erysimum 'Bowles' Mauve', Centaurea montana and a whole host of minor but very welcome players in the overall picture.  The first rose in bloom this year was the pink rugosa at the bottom of the garden, narrowly beating the usual winner, 'Mary Queen of Scots' (which is still too big and which I intermittently try to cut back).  The creamy-white Rosa altaica has also put on a good display, and 'Gertrude Jekyll' is just coming into flower.

The variegated dogwood (Cornus sibirica 'Variegata') is also coming into bloom.  It's a beautiful shrub in almost all seasons, and I find it difficult to be sufficiently strict with it by cutting it back, for which I'm paying the penalty.  I had intended to give it a hard prune this year but have failed to do this.  The old advice was to cut it right down in late winter, to allow it to produce the new shoots that give the lovely red winter stems, but in recent years it has been suggested that that should be left until March, or staggered across a couple of years (to give a mix of new shoots and old stems with the variegated foliage).  As a result I did nothing for a couple of years, and it has become much too big; not only does it grow long stems but, where those stems touch the ground, they take root and the result is that the plant spreads too widely.  It has swallowed two rose bushes and the peony, and was shaking hands with 'Mary Queen of Scots' across the narrow path between them.  My plan now is to try to remove most of the plant entirely, leaving a couple of the layerings as a replacement and being much stricter about their management.  I started by taking out the branches reaching across the path, thereby liberating the Rosa gallica officinalis and some of the R. 'Alfred de Dalmas' next to it, and a couple of branches that were smothering the peony (which should soon be in bloom).  I then noticed something dark in the centre of the bush and, on closer inspection, this turned out to be a very young blackbird fledgeling, the first that we'd seen this year, sitting waiting to be fed; so the dogwood got a stay of execution!  Another day .....