May has to be the most beautiful month of the year especially in the sunshine! All the colours look fabulous, I just love the bright fresh greens that seem to fluoresce in the light. And what a wonderful growing month it’s been so far warm sunshine, warm nights and the odd down pour all make for great growing conditions – it’s been a typical spring at long last!
These perfect growing conditions were very apparent at Chelsea Flower Show this week with lots of beautiful planting in the gardens small and big, I particularly loved the very airy romantic prairie planting that was on several main gardens, check out “Help for Heroes”, Cleve West’s beautiful garden along with Brewin Dolphin, Laurent Perrier and the Vital Earth garden.
The rose growers in the floral pavilion were particularly cheerful because the spring has been so good with their stands just crammed with blooms and scent – it’s made up for the last two years which has had them working hard to get a few blossoms! Going to a show like Chelsea can really inspire you with design ideas and planting schemes but do remember they are designed to give full impact at that moment in time, especially the planting – so may look dull later in the year so you will need to add other plants to keep colour and interest through-out the seasons. Also the landscapes can look stunning but I wouldn’t want to be the person who has to look after some of them, so do think about the practicalities before you exactly copy a garden design!
Great growing weather is also good for the weeds, do keep on top of them it’s not only aesthetic but the weeds are competition for your plants – using up water and nutrients and can actually squash out young plants. Hoe regularly in sunny weather and the young weed seedlings will frazzle up and definitely pull them out before they set seed as you’ll be making lots of work for yourself in years to come. Here’s to more of the same weather wise – sunshine – the odd splash of rain and warmth!