Are we really in May already... How did that happen? One minute its freezing March and the daffodils are not quite open and now they are mostly over. April was dry and for the most part pretty warm. I even had to fill up my water butts from the tap...in Scotland...in April. Last night the first gentle rain started and for the most part its been pretty steady today. I took the opportunity to get some of the plants out of the greenhouse to let them get a thorough soaking and I am sure they have grown dramatically in the last couple of hours. One good thing about a dry spell is the lack of slug activity. They do still make their way into the greenhouse along with the biggest snails possible, but actually in the garden is relatively unscathed particularly the delphiniums. Now, after 24 hours of rain and the hostas coming through, lets see if the molluscs will have had a munch. I have come to the realisation that a wildlife garden needs the so called 'pests' if I didn't have slugs and snails what would the blackbirds and toads have to eat?
The garden is noticeably changing daily. I'm very excited to have my first bud on the peony since it was moved so that's a good sign that its in a happy place. There was a fair bit of rearranging of plants in all of the beds at the back end of last year, mostly due to the garden open day, but also some plants had just outgrown their space and others weren't doing as well as they might. One of the major changes was in the sunroom bed where I took out the large carex - comans bronze, added in the deutzia and moved all of the hellebores from their various locations to this bed and I am delighted to see that it paid off...they are thriving!
One of the new additions to the garden this year are eremurus - fox tail lilies and they have already put on quite a lot of leaf growth and now the first flower head is visible so it will be interesting to log the date when they first flower.
Something I am getting a bit better at is spacing plants. I've learned the hard way, some plants I've lost when they have been crowded out and others I've had to shift, often multiple times. Its not always easy to visualise the size that some plants will get to and sometimes putting a young plant in an apparent space can often lead to a gangling, spindly plant as others grow up around it. Lets face it, what is the point to growing anything if you don't get to appreciate it because its not been given the best chance to thrive?
As the last of the daffodils fade and the late tulips performing well, I'm also excited to see the tulip - spring green looking glorious. I planted them on Christmas day, well there's not much else to do and the TV is usually pretty dire, and the results now were very much worth it.
We're due a couple of chilly days and nights with snow forecast for the hills before the temperatures heading back up again. I'm sure in a week the garden will be looking completely different again...I can't wait!