The Blooming Garden

We gardeners are like farmers, always grumbling about the weather. Last week we were saying that it was too hot and worrying about drought. But the roses were the best I have ever seen them. Now we have had some torrential rain and hail accompanied by wind and the poor roses are dashed and some of them looking quite miserable. As for the herbaceous peonies, the poor things are far too aristocratic to be left out in the storm. I wish I had given them all an umbrella and a chaise longue to recline on. The beautiful white ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ has given up in disgust and ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ is looking a bit pale and wan.

2. Fortunately, most of the roses are just getting into their stride and I hope they will look less forlorn when the sun comes out. The rambling ‘Super Fairy’ is modern rose dating from 1992 but I love it because it is always full of clusters of pink fully double flowers and it blooms all summer. It is growing on the fence with ‘Tausendschön’ which is a favourite of mine because of its lovely two-tone flowers. The elder, Sambucus ‘Black Lace’ is a great foil for pink and white roses. Actually, now I come to look closely at the white rose, I don’t think it is ‘Tousendschön’ there is not enough pink on it. I think it is more likely to be one of my seed grown roses, there are two growing on this fence.

Beautiful ‘Bathsheba’ has quite a few battered flowers but never mind, there will be plenty more to come. To me, the colour and form of the flowers of this David Austin rose create rose perfection.

I also love the goblet flowers of Rosa macrantha ‘Raubritter’. Years ago, I used to grow this rose tumbling along the bank of my lake. Here, it grows by my smaller pond which is just a puddle really. But still it is beautiful and there are lots more buds to come. Behind it you can see Indigofera pendula which is just starting to bloom and it is lovely all summer.

3. I have always loved pinks and over the years I have carelessly lost quite a few as they are not long lived. But they are easy from summer cuttings, you just pull off a shoot that is non- flowering. Pinks have been beloved garden flowers for centuries and they were popular with the Victorians. It is sad that many varieties have been lost. I love the history of colour and how colours have different cultural significance which changes over time. There was not even a name for pink until the late seventeenth century as it was just considered to be a shade of light red. As red was a bold military colour, pink was suitable for boys as mini warriors. Blue was a virginal colour considered suitable for girls. It wasn’t until the 1950s that blue was considered a boyish colour and pink was for girls. But actually, the dianthus flowers we call pinks were so named because of their frilly petals which look as if they have been pinked, so the name has nothing to do with the colour. One of my favourite pinks is not even pink. Dianthus ‘Musgrave’s Pink’ is white with a green centre. I first saw it in the white garden at Sissinghurst and fell for it. It was introduced by C.T. Musgrave in 1936 but it is believed to be a very old variety. An identical one appeared in paintings in the 1730s.

I love the old laced varieties of pinks. ‘Gran’s Favourite’ looks like a heritage variety but is actually a modern hybrid created by Mrs. Underwood who had a nursery in Colchester specialising in silver foliage plants.

Even more striking, with deeper coloured red markings, Dianthus ‘Dad’s Favourite’ is a very old laced pink dating from 1780.

You can get modern varieties which look like heritage ones. A pretty one is Dianthus ‘Cherry Burst’ which makes a nice compact plant with silvery foliage.

Just one more as once I get started on pinks I don’t know where to stop. This is another modern one called ‘Tickled Pink’. But I realise I haven’t mentioned the most important feature of pinks which is their glorious clovey scent.

4. I first came upon epiphyllums years ago in a Victorian greenhouse belonging to a very old lady who had given up the struggle to care for her plants. But these neglected epis were blooming away despite being unwatered and forgotten. I was astonished by the sheer size and glamour of the blooms. Of course I had to acquire a few, a plantaholic couldn’t possibly resist. I have several now and they are an awful nuisance. They are not hardy and they grow longer and longer legs and topple over if kept on a shelf. I bought a cheap coat and hat stand to hang them from but they are a nuisance for much of the year. But then they produce their huge flowers and you forgive them. But each flower only lasts a few days, so blink and you miss it. Although to be fair there is a succession of blooms. But still, I really don’t know if they are worth the space they take up.

5. I have showed my Kalmia latifolia ‘Kaleidoscope’ before on this blog but before it goes over I am going to show you the pretty flower again. It has to live in a pot as it needs ericaceous soil but it seems quite happy.

6. And to finish here is a photo of the last flower on my hardy Cypripedium which is commonly known as Lady’s Slipper Orchid. I have had it for years and I can’t remember the name of the variety. It is beginning to go over so I should have featured it last week but I forgot all about it. Anyway, it is still pretty even though it is past its best.

So that is another Six on Saturday completed. Maybe next week we will be enjoying summer weather again. June is the loveliest month of the year and we really need to be out there enjoying the garden. I bet I am not the only one who has spent the day ducking and diving to avoid a soaking. Thanks to Jim at Garden Ruminations for hosting this meme. Good luck and sunny weather to Jim and other SoSers who are opening their gardens in the next few weeks.

I know we need rain but I am enjoying this wonderful sunshine. As happens to all of us from time to time, I have had a pig of a week. So it is wonderful to linger in the garden and find it is coming to its peak of beauty; my favourite time of the whole year is when the roses and peonies come into bloom and now after a few days of distraction, I find they are all appearing.

I suppose it is foolish to have roses that bloom only once in a small garden but I would never be without my favourite gallica, ‘Charles de Mills’. Linnaeus invented the name ‘gallica’ because the first one he saw came from France They are probably the first roses in cultivation.

French rose breeders were more interested in developing centifolias up unto the end of the eighteenth century. But under the First Empire (1804-15) the fashion for gallicas became predominant and by 1815 there were more than 500 available in France. Many were imported from Holland and Belgium and given French names. Josephine Bonaparte had a passion for gallicas and for roses generally and her rose garden at Malmaison was very influential and is now legendary although unfortunately there are no records of it. Josephine seems a woman after my own heart with her love of violets and roses. This rose was apparently one of her favourites. But when it comes to her love of control- freak emperors with narcissistic personality disorders and her dubious hygiene, we have to differ.

Anyway, back to my beloved ‘Charles de Mills’, it came from the Low Countries in 1786 and it was originally called ‘Bizarre triomphant’. I don’t know who Charles de Mills was and what he did to have this glorious rose named after him. Like all gallicas, it is not remontant, that means it only blooms once but it is so exquiste in shape, colour and scent that I don’t mind. It is fully double and the opulent flowers are quartered with closely packed petals. They are beautifully coloured purple, magenta and deep pink. The foliage is generally healthy and they don’t need hard pruning as they bloom on old wood.

I have another old rose which is an alba. These roses date back to the Middle Ages. They are recognisable by their healthy blue-green leaves and the delicious fragrance of their abundant flowers. Another plus is the fact that they are not too thorny. My alba rose is called ‘Chloris’. In case you thought I bought it because we have the same name, perhaps now is the time to admit that I am not really called Chloris. Despite the fact that when I started this blog I intended to stay incognito, most people have me sussed now. So no, I am not really Chloris, the Ancient Greek Goddess of Flowers, Nymph of the Islands of the Blessed. And neither am I married to Zephyr, god of the west wind. Sorry if my impersonation caused any confusion. But this is another lovely French rose bred by the rosarian Jacques-Louis Descemet in 1820. ‘Chloris’ is a good name for a rose because in Greek mythology, Chloris created a new flower by breathing life into a dead woodland nymph. And that is how the rose was created. The rose Chloris has an abundance of the palest pink flowers.

Another rose which is giving me joy right now is a David Austin climbing rose. This rose always looked miserable growing in the shade in my previous garden. I had no idea what it was until somebody kindly identified it for me on this blog. I brought a cutting with me when I came here and now it is delighting me as it is growing so strongly on a stump of an apple tree. I didn’t realise that this rose could look so healthy and full of blooms. It is not named after a nymph or a goddess but more prosaically after the flautist, James Galway. It dates from 2000. It has exquisitely shaped pink flowers which are deeper pink in the centre.

All the roses I am writing about have lovely healthy foliage. When I first created a rose garden I had been beguiled by Vita Sackville West and other writers with their lyrical descriptions of old fashioned roses with romantic names. They were beautiful roses but many of them were disfigured by rust. Now I only grow roses with healthy foliage. Christopher Lloyd wrote: ‘What’s a little rust between friends?’ I think rust ruins the look of the plant and it weakens them and why would you grow roses that are susceptible to disease? My next one is a Multiflora rambler with healthy, glossy foliage and not too many thorns. Unlike many ramblers it does not grow enormous and it has delightful butter yellow flowers which deepen to gold in the centre. Vita Sackville West loved this rose and said it was her treasure and her pet. It is mine too. It is called ‘Goldfinch’.

My next rose is not actually a climber, it is a large shrub rose but it seems to want to climb the black painted shed where I grow it. It is a German rose bred by Wilhelm Kordes in 1952 called ‘Scharlachglut’. I love roses with single flowers and this has huge red blooms which look wonderful against a blue sky. It only blooms once but in autumn it has long- lasting enormous hips. It has lovely healthy foliage and its only drawback is the fact that it has absolutely vicious thorns. In the UK, you sometimes find it listed as ‘Scarlet Fire’.

For number six we have my absolute favourite rambler ‘ Phyllis Bide’. It dates from 1923. I have waxed lyrical about this rose before on this blog as I absolutely love it. It has abundant sprays of apricot- pink and yellow flowers. And unusually for a rambler it is repeat flowering. It is not too thorny which is a relief after trying to tie in vicious ‘Scharlachglut’.

This week is all about roses but I am going to cheat and pop in an extra because I want to finish with a fabulous annual poppy which seeded itself from the ones I grew last year. If you haven’t tried growing Papaver ‘Amazing Grey’ then do give it a try. The flowers are all in different shades of grey, or slatey- blue, some single, some double and ruffled, some more pinkish than others, some edged with white, but all divine.

So there we have my six roses and a poppy. My Six on Saturday is a bit late this week but I just made it in time. It doesn’t count if it appears on Sunday. Thank you Jim at Garden Ruminations for getting us to pick out six special plants to enjoy and share every week.

Here in the UK we are not used to such hot days in May. It’s put a temporary stop to my grubbing in the garden. So time to stop and stare for a while. I’ll start with a small tree which I rather regret buying. I wanted a Magnolia wilsonii which I used to grow and love. It had pure white flowers with wine red stamens in May and it smelt fabulous. I thought Magnolia sieboldii would be similar. But the flowers are cream rather than white and I find the scent rather unpleasant, it’s slightly medicinal. But the stamens are quite eye-catching.

2. As I’m short of room it is fortunate that my next shrub, Crinodendron hookerianum needs ericaceous soil and so must live in its pot. The one I had in my previous garden grew huge and rooted through the pot into the ground and nobody had told it that it wasn’t supposed to like the alkaline soil. This one is very happy so far and I hope I can keep it happy as I love the pink flowers. Its common name, Chilean Lantern tree suits it very well.

3. Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’ is a small tree which I bought for my previous garden and brought with me when I moved. It needs plenty of room so it is not an obvious choice for a small garden. It is known as The Wedding Cake tree because of the way it has spreading tiers of branches resembling a wedding cake. It is one of my must-have trees and fortunately it is slow growing.

4. Irises. In the little pond in front of my Wedding Cake Tree you can see the pale lemon flowers of Iris pseudocorus var. bastardii. This is a much more refined version of the quite invasive native Iris pseudocorus.

The iris on the right of the photograph of the Cornus controversa is an interesting cross between Iris pseudocorus and Iris sibirica. It is called Iris ‘Ally Oops’. I love the lemon flowers with blue veining.

It is enormous fun and very easy growing irises from seed. I have lots of seed grown Iris sibirica and they are all lovely. The mother of this next one was Iris sibirica ‘Silver Edge’.

5. Orchid. Readers of my blog will know that I adore wild orchids. More than ten years ago I bought Dactylorhiza fuchsii on Ebay. When I moved I brought it with me. I thought that I would have carpets of it by now but although it comes up every year with two or three flower spikes, it never gets any bigger and it never seeds around. But still I am always pleased to see it.

6. Poppies. Jim at Garden Ruminations is featuring a poppy this week which he thinks is Papaver atlanticum. This poppy comes from the Atlas mountains in Morocco. I have one that looks very similar which I have always known as Papaver rupifagum. This poppy is known as the Spanish poppy as it comes from Andalusia. Kit Grey -Wilson who wrote a fabulous book on poppies which is my poppy Bible says they are easy to tell apart. I beg to differ. Anyway, whether it is Spanish or Moroccan, I love the double, tangerine tissue- paper like flowers. And it seeds around happily so once you have it you are never without it.

I have another apricot poppy which is a biennial from Armenia. It has pretty single flowers but many people grow it for the silvery filigree foliage. It is called Papaver trinifolium. And now I think I must stop right there as I am probably coming across as a rather tiresome poppy nerd and you probably don’t care what they are are called.

It should be ideal hammock weather today but white bottomed bumble bees, Bombus hypnorum have taken over the bird box on the tree trunk which we fasten our hammocks to. Apparently, these tree bumbles are aggressive if their nest is threatened. So we are sitting at a respectful distance, but I keep throwing them resentful looks; it’s a bit much having to give up our prime lounging position to bees. Apparently, they only arrived in the UK in 2011. Here is the box complete with a couple of lurking drones. They have built a little landing stage across the middle of the entrance.

It can’t be much fun being a bee. The workers never stop working, selflessly gathering pollen. The drones have to hang about waiting for the queen to emerge. If it gets too hot they have to flap their wings like miniature punkah wallahs to cool down the hive. If they do manage to have sex with the queen they then die as their job is done. As for the queen, she has to run the gauntlet of crowds of sex- mad drones whenever she comes out and then the rest of the time she has to sit around laying eggs. You would find yourself wondering what it’s all for, wouldn’t you, if you were a bee? Anyway, as l so often do, I seem to have wandered off the Six on Saturday theme somewhat. The bees are certainly not included. So I’ll finish by reminding you to check out Jim at Garden Ruminations who tirelessly hosts this theme every Saturday.

Well, we are back in the UK and back to winter clothes and central heating. And rain. And even slight frost early in the week. Surely May shouldn’t be like this? But the garden is lush and full of delights.

1. Peonies. I have missed my tree peonies and the lovely lemon blooms of ‘Molly the Witch’ have gone over but I was just in time to see Paeonia tenuifolia which comes from the steppes of Russia. This lovely peony is known as the fern leaf peony for obvious reasons. It has bright red fragrant single blooms.

I love Itoh peonies as these hybrids between herbacious and tree peonies give you the best of both worlds. I wish I had room for lots of them. ‘Julia Rose’ is an absolute charmer with fragrant pink flowers which fade to peaches and cream.

2. Roses. It is lovely to come home to roses in bloom. In fact my beautiful ‘Drinkstone Apricot’ which was born in a previous garden is already past its best. This climbing rose is incredibly floriferous.

I love China roses as they bloom on and off all year round with pretty single flowers. For reasons which escape me Rosa chinensis is now known as Rosa x adorata. The one I am featuring here with lovely single red flowers is called ‘Bengal Beauty’. You sometimes find it listed as Bengal Crimson’.

And for even darker, velvety red, the single flowers of ‘Dusky Maiden’ with their golden stamens are wonderful.

There are other roses coming into bloom but the one looking fabulous right now is the climbing rose ‘Lady Waterlow’. I fell in love with it years ago when I saw it growing up a wall at Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire. Its lovely, blowsy flowers change colour as they mature.

3. Irises. The wild Iris pseudacorus is very invasive but I can’t resist the yellow flowers of Iris pseudacorus ‘Berlin Tiger’. They are heavily veined with brown stripes, or are they maroon? I can’t make up my mind. Behind the irises is a pretty little weeping larch.

My Iris germanica are still blooming happily. Most of them are seed grown children of Benton irises. I haven’t room here to show you all of them but this one is a pretty colour.

Another very pretty Benton daughter is this one whose Mother was either ‘Benton Olive’ or ‘Benton Susan’, I got the seedlings muddled up. But of course, they don’t come true from seed and that is why it is such fun to grow them, you never know what you will get.

4. Cistus. I love all cistus, but my favourite is Cistus ladanifer which has gummy, aromatic leaves which smell of the garrigue on a sunny day. I love the white flowers contrasted with dark maroon centres. It is growing with the snowy white flowers of Libertia chilensis which I used to know as Libertia grandiflora.

5.Clematis. My Clematis alpina ‘Blue Dancer’ bloomed in early April before I went to France but lovely Clematis alpina ‘Boughton Snow’ still has quite a few bloom. I grow it on a wrought iron obelisk behind the white cistus.

A rather appealing feature of this clematis is that it bears both double flowers like the above and also single ones at the same time.

I have another Boughton clematis which I love. I suppose they both originated in the gardens of Boughton Hall in Northamptonshire. Clematis montana ‘Boughton Star’ now climbs all over a cryptomeria. I don’t suppose it is doing the tree much good but it is a wonderful sight.

To the right of the tree you can see Euphorbia mellifera which is loved by pollinators and by me as the honey scent wafts around the garden.

6. Holboellia. I will finish with another climbing plant which grows up a tall conifer that I decapitated leaving just the trunk. I love fragrance in the garden and in a previous garden I grew a holboellia which I purchased from the wonderful nursery, Crûg Farm Plants. Sue and Bledynn Wynn-Jones travel the world finding exciting new plants and the holboellia I grew didn’t even have a name, just a collection number. I think it was a form of Holboellia brachyandra or possibly Holboellia latifolia.

The one I have now is I believe Holboellia coriacea. It covers the tree with attractive foliage and gives privacy to the bluetits who like to use the birdbox on this tree trunk. But it is not fragrant and that is the reason I am growing it, I thought all holboellias are fragrant. So that is a disappointment.

So there we have another Six on Saturday hosted by Jim at Garden Ruminations who has a wonderful garden in Cornwall where he grows a host of fabulous plants. Do pay him a visit and find all the other dedicated SoSers.

Last week I showed some of my roses but I have two more beauties which bloom all summer. This week I am featuring a glorious rose named after a French chef. ‘Reine Sammut’ blooms all summer long and the flowers have a delicious fragrance.

The rose I bought as ‘Mareva’ is the palest pink. But as Mareva is supposed to be a carpet rose growing to between 60 and 90 cm, I think maybe it is wrongly labelled. It seems to be intent on climbing the external steps.

It is pretty though and it has masses of buds to come.

I find plant labelling here in France, incredibly frustrating. I bought Halimiocistus ‘Merrist Wood Cream’ a few weeks ago. This has cream flowers with maroon centres. It has started flowering now and it has pink flowers and looks like Cistus ‘Silver Pink’. If I hadn’t been in such a rush I would have noticed that the leaves weren’t right. When I complained, the man at the nursery said ‘Ça vous dérange?’ I told him it did derange me a little, so he asked if ‘les fleurs sont jolies?’ I had to admit that the flowers are ‘jolies’. So that was it, check mate, the end of the discussion.

And I have a magnificent white peony which was labelled ‘Sarah Bernhardt’. Sarah is the most exquisite peony with fabulous pink flowers so this white one does ‘derange’ me quite a lot even if it is beautiful.

It has loads more buds to come so I shall have to learn to love it and try not to resent it for not being pink.

The geum I bought a couple of years ago was not wrongly labelled; it wasn’t labelled at all. But I am not complaining as it is doing so well. The ones I grow in the UK always dwindle and fade away after a while. It looks great with Heuchera ‘Caramel’ which is enormous. The ones I grow in the UK always seem to get attacked by vine weevil and I have never managed to get one as big as this.

Another plant which flourishes here is Baptisia australis with its pea flowers. It would be even better if the horrible man-eating slugs and snails didn’t eat half the shoots. The beastly slimy things are the bane of my life. I thought they weren’t supposed to like coffee grounds or gravel. But they don’t seemto mind.

When I started the garden here I thought how pretty ferns would look along the bottom of the wall which is always in the shade. I didn’t have to do anything about it because the ferns had the same idea themselves. If only gardening was always this easy; just thinking something to make it happen and you don’t even have to get out of your hammock. I’m not terribly au fait with ferns but I think these are Athryium filix-femina. I also have some dinky little aspleniums growing on the wall.

When I am in France I love prowling round brocantes.

I have collected quite a few earthenware pots which I believe were used to store duck fat. I am using one to grow a Greek basil. I love these small leaved basil, they smell delicious and by the end of the summer they make nice bushy plants. I just hope I can keep the slimy beasts off it.

I wonder if anyone else had to read Keat’s tragic poem, Isabella or The Basil Pot at school. Poor Isabella and Lorenzo fell in love only to have her cruel brothers murder him and bury him in the woods as Isabella was supposed to marry ‘some high noble and his olive trees‘. Isabella had a vision and so discovered where her lover was buried. She dug him up and cut off his head and took it home as a memento. She planted it in a basil pot and watered it with her tears ‘whence thick and green and beautiful it grew‘. But her brothers got fed up with her mooning around and weeping over a basil pot so they stole it away. Poor Isabella’s last words on the subject were ‘oh cruelty, to steal my basil pot away from me!’ It’s all very tragic but as a teenager I found it hilarious. Anyway, I have not cut off the Pianist’s head and I will not be watering it with my tears but I hope my basil will grow green and beautiful.

I seem to have wandered off piste a bit here but I cannot look at my basil pot without thinking about poor tragic Isabella laboriously chopping off her dead lover’s head.

So there we have my Six on Saturday. You might think it is seven. But number one is roses and although there are two, I am counting them as one. Please check out Jim at Garden Ruminations to see other May delights.

Long before I grew up and started gardening I had a passion for wild flowers, in fact one of my first words was ‘celandine’ apparently. And to this day, wild flowers growing in their natural habitat remain a passion. I was alarmed to read in the newspaper the other day that wild flower tourism is now a thing. Already the world is teaming with tourists flocking round all the most beautiful and culturally significant sites in the world. Last year on a walk in the Pyrenees we found ourselves in a crocodile as we climbed. I believe the same thing happens if you want to climb Everest or visit the Alhambra or the Uffici or anywhere else of significance. People are out there with their infernal bucket lists going tick, tick, tick. Whoever invented the bucket list has a lot to answer for. And now they have turned their attention to wild flowers. Let us hope that this doesn’t mean that the world’s flora is about to be trampled on, dug up or picked by bored people keen to get into the latest bucket list trend.

But here in this beautiful corner of France we get to enjoy the most spectacular displays of wildflowers in peace. And of course, we get to enjoy the views too.

Our evening walk takes us high up to this seat, just below the castle where we can catch our breath and take advantage of the fabulous views.

Beautiful flowers grow on the rocks. The dianthus aren’t in bloom yet but they are full of buds and are so pretty when the pink flowers come out.

This next one is a dainty little antirrhinum.

The next photo is a bit out of focus but this dinky little globularia would be wonderful for a rockery with its little blue balls for flowers.

I love all forms of silene and Silene nutans grows in abundance here. In the UK its common name is Nottingham Catchfly because it was found growing on the walls of Nottingham Castle.

It is strange to see so many plants here that are garden plants at home such as honesty, valerian and these verbascums.

All sorts of little sedums grow on the rocks, I have several growing on my walls.

This one is enjoying the attentions of a Provençal Fritillary butterfly.

If we walk down the road to the river the fragrance of the acacia trees is intoxicating and they are everywhere. Actually, I just learnt that they are actually called Robinia pseudo-acacia or False Acacia, so they are not really acacias at all.

I was surprised to find this pretty Colutea arborescens growing wild.

I love Ragged Robin and here it grows in abundance. In France it is called ‘Fleur de coucou’ which is appropriate as it blooms in late April when you hear the first cuckoos here.

Near the river is a huge meadow full of meadow buttercups, Ragged Robin and Early Purple Orchids.

These Early Purples grow on all the verges round here, it is the commonest orchid. There are 54 different sorts of orchid in the Aveyron and I wrote about them last year. My chief delight here in late April and early May is to go orchid hunting. I have to say that the Pianist who finds it a bit of a bore is endlessly patient.

Today, I will show you just a few; the Military Orchid only appears on two closely guarded sites in the UK.

The Man Orchid is just coming out. When it is fully open, little fully equipped men dangle from each hood. Right now you can only see their legs beginning to emerge.

Lady orchids are much more decorous with pretty skirts.

There are several bee orchids, this one is Ophrys scolopax.

Right now we are heading down the road towards the gorge. On the way we pass a gorgeous clump of an unusual orchid, Serapias lingua.

Once we get down into the gorge and walk along the river it feels quite jungle-like.

Many trees are covered in lichen and sometimes you see wild boar.

I was surprised to find Lathraea clandestina growing on willow roots. This plant is parasitic on its host and has no leaves as it produces no chlorophyll. The only other place I have seen it growing is in the late Bernard Tickner’s garden Fuller’s Mill in Norfolk. Years ago he gave me a piece but I could never get it to grow.

Two kinds of pulmonaria grow here, both Pulmonaria affinis and Pulmonaria longifolia.

And then there are the fabulous ferns, but I think they can wait for another day.

May is such a fabulous time in the garden and here in south west France, roses are looking wonderful and they do really well. Although I am limited for space, each time I come I squeeze in just one more. I prefer to grow French roses here and one of the most famous rose growers is Meilland. One of my favourites looks rather like a David Austin rose with its fully quartered flowers. They are a lovely peachy-apricot colour although they fade a bit in very hot sun. They smell delicious and the blooms are long lasting in a vase. The foliage is always very healthy and there are hardly any thorns. I think Meilland must be very proud of this rose as it bears the family name of ‘Mademoiselle Meilland’.

My other Meilland rose is named after a well known French rock and roll star and actor called Eddy Mitchell. Apparently he chose the name Mitchell because he thought it sounded American. His band was called ‘Les Chausettes Noires’ ( the Black Socks.) This rose is supposed to be a rock and roll sort of rose which is so dark red that it is nearly black to represent the black socks. The reverse sides of the petals are gold, so it is quite striking. What I like about it is the fact that it is repeat flowering which is very important as I am not here all summer.

I have another lovely dark red rose which I have no name for. It didn’t have a label, which is often the case here. I was told that it was possibly ‘Nadine’ but as ‘Nadine’ is orange this can’t be right. I know that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet but I am keen on the naming of names. It’s like having a really good friend but not knowing what to call them. I love the colour of this and the flowers are such a pretty shape.

I have another lovely rose which is nameless but this is because my son grew it from a cutting of the rose on his house. I think it might be another Meilland rose introduced in 1957 called ‘Cocktail’. I love single roses and this is certainly eye- catching. Passers-by stop to take photos.

After saying that I only want French roses in this garden, I have to admit that I fell for the faded lilac colour of this next rose and had to buy it even though it is English. I have never heard of the breeder, Peter James, before. I believe this rose was originally sold as ‘Blue for You’ which would have put me off. I can’t think of anything more horrible than a blue rose. Anyway, it is not the slightest bit blue, but it is a very pretty shade. It is a floribunda and should keep flowering all summer. It is called ‘Pacific Dream’.

Well, this was going to be all about roses but I have some fireworks going off in the garden so I will finish with these. I love alliums and Allium schubertii is such fun, people who have never seen it before are astonished. It must be the largest allium; it certainly is a showstopper.

So that is my Six on Saturday to celebrate the arrival of beautiful May. At this time of the year, it is particularly difficult to stick with just six flowers but I have been very disciplined today. Thanks as usual to Jim at Garden Ruminations for hosting this popular meme.

We arrived in France a few days ago to find the garden totally overgrown of course, there has been endless rain here too. But I am happy because I am one of those weird people who love weeding. There are some losses, my beautiful rose ‘Pierre de Ronsard’ has turned up its toes and died for no discernible reason. But Rosa ‘Pompom de Paris’ is thriving and scrambling all over; there are lots of flowers and buds. I love this early- flowering rose but it only blooms once.

I am happy to see that my olive tree has survived the winter. It does need a haircut though, I have never pruned an olive tree and I am not sure how to do it. I will have to learn on the job.

In the corner you can see my Scilla peruviana which I hope will make a nice clump eventually. It is such a wonderful metallic blue.

The most flamboyant plant in the garden is the gorgeous pink tree peony Peaonia suffruticosa. I know these are fleeting beauties but when they are in bloom I feel like filling the garden with them.

My number five is not in my garden but I am enjoying it because it grows on the abandoned house across the road. I can enjoy it without having the trouble of trying to control it. Anybody who grows Wisteria floribunda knows what a battle it is to keep it within bounds.

I will finish with some fresh green foliage which is delighting me. I love Acer palmatum ‘Emerald Lace’ because it looks good all year round. It has a rounded shape with arching branches and is quite compact. I definitely need more acers here.

So there we have my quick Six on Saturday. I haven’t got time to write much today there is too much to do outside. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the garden is calling me urgently. Thanks as usual to Jim at Garden Ruminations.

This is my favourite month. As Shakespeare called it: ‘ Proud-pied April dressed in all his trim‘. Spring flowers are here in abundance and are so delicately beautiful and refined compared to the blowsy charms of May and June blooms.

1. Erythroniums.

Having moved house, I have had to start again with my erythronium collection. They don’t like being moved. So for now I have only two of these beauties and they are the most commonly available. Erythronium ‘Pagoda’ has lovely nodding star-shaped heads with recurved petals.

And then I have Erythronium californicum ‘ White Beauty’. Next year I shall add some pink European Erythronium ‘Dens canis’. Because clearly I need more of these shade loving spring ephemerals.

2.Trilliums.

My other American woodlander is Trillium chloropetalum and this has travelled round with me and moved house several times in the last twenty years and I now have two large clumps.

This is all very well, but only one sort of trillium? I need to do something about this, especially after seeing Paddy Toibin’s amazing collection on his blog, An Irish Gardener.

3.Terrestrial orchids.

The lovely little April orchid Pleione formosana lives in a pot in the greenhouse because I am not quite confident that it can cope with my much frost. I have brought it into the house to enjoy its blooms inside. It is sometimes called ‘the windowsill orchid’ but although it needs plenty of light, it doesn’t like direct sun. It is quite easy to care for and spreads nicely in its pot, creating more nice plump pseudobulbs. Which is appropriate as this plant is named after Pleione who was a Greek nymph, the mother to the seven daughters known as the Pleiades. The name means ‘to increase in number’ and it will do just that as long as you give it a gritty compost that prevents the pseudobulbs from rotting. They need to be kept quite dry in winter whilst they are dormant.

4.The Chocolate Vine.

Akebia quinata is a vigorous climber. It is supposed to smell of chocolate, although I can’t say I have noticed this. But people do love flowers which are said to smell of food. I like it even when it is not in bloom because it has pretty palmate leaves which quickly covered the fence. I bought the cream form when I moved here as a change but I think I prefer the traditional reddish-purple one. I think I will buy a purple one to grow with it as the two together should look pretty. Also, if you have two plants you have more chance of getting the sumptuous huge lilac-coloured fruit.

I have to keep hacking this back as it has territorial ambitions and it has to compete with Clematis armandii which is just as greedy for space and a trachelospermum.

5. Clematis.

Here is the Clematis amandii which has to fight for space with the Akebia quinata. It is the third attempt to grow it and I am a bit miffed that it keeps dying on me when a house not far away from here is totally covered in it. Anyway, third time lucky. The previous one was a lovely pale pink one called ‘Apple Blossom’ but this one is a snowy white one called ‘Snowdrift’. I love this because it blooms so early, it has been in flower for ages now.

The other clematis in bloom now is Clematis alpina which I grow in a large pot. I have to admit that I copied this idea from Vita Sackville West. As this clematis doesn’t grow enormous I think it is a nice way to show it off, as it might get lost amongst more vigorous climbers. This plant probably had a name once but if it did I seem to have lost it. But it is a pretty violet-blue shade.

And now we are at number six and I am sad if I have to miss out fritillaries, wood anemones, epimediums, pulsatillas, brunnera and all the other April delights. But it is a lovely day and I have been sitting here far too long trying to decide which to mention and which to leave for another day.

6. Magnolias.

I have already mentioned that when we came three years ago this garden had no plants apart from a yew, some tatty conifers and two magnolias. Magnolia soulangeana is massive and in a small garden I resent the amount of room it takes up, room that could be given to my favourite ‘Star Wars.’ If you have plenty of magnolia room then please forget Magnolia soulangeana and grow fabulous Magnolia campbellii x liliflora ‘Star Wars’. The campbellii in its make up gives this magnolia massive rosy-pink flowers. The late Princess Sturdza of the wonderful Vasterival garden in Normandy told me years ago that this was her favourite magnolia and I grew it in my previous garden. It was a real show-stopper. But this is Six on Saturday so I really must stick to what I do grow and have in bloom and not go off onto tangents of what I would like to grow, or have grown in the past. But I do yearn particularly for Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ and Magnolia ‘Susan which I used to grow. If only I had more room. But there is a huge Magnolia stellata here and I appreciate it even though the snowy white flowers on the top of the tree were browned by frost. Anyway, this is going over now and even though I lack the space I have planted lovely Magnolia x loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ which I have always grown in every garden. It does grow to up to 8 metres tall but it is slow growing and this will take twenty years or more so it will be somebody else’s problem. You can tell that this tree has ‘stellata’ in its make up by its lovely tattery petals, or rather tepals. But ‘Leonard Messel’ is a bit later blooming, it is only just coming into flower now so it is less likely to get burnt by frost.

So here we are with beautiful Magnolia ‘Leonard Messel’ with its delicate pale pink flowers.

So that’s it for today, so many April beauties cruelly overlooked but rules are rules and this is Six on Saturday. Many thanks as usual to Jim at Garden Ruminations who is now a national television personality.

In the UK, we gardeners have been feeling in our bones that spring is here for some time now. But yesterday it became official. And with glorious sun and temperatures reaching 17 degrees on Thursday, it is time to dance around the lawn and to sing: ‘Hey ding a ding a ding’ and to celebrate ‘with a hey and a ho and a hey nonino’. Except I haven’t got a lawn and I have neighbours. But still I am celebrating. My winter garden now looks like a spring garden.

Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis rosea’ which bloomed in November and then had a long winter rest is in full bloom again. I can’t think of any other prunus which does this. But the tree I want to show you right now is my dwarf peach tree which lives in a pot. It is Prunus persica ‘Melred’ and I grow it for its beautitul vivid pink blossom. In August it bears delicious fruit but I grow it for the lovely blossom.

At the moment you see forsythia everywhere in strident yellow. Much prettier in my mind are the dainty primrose-yellow flowers of Corylopsis pauciflora. I have to admit that I have killed two of these lovely shrubs in my time, so third time lucky. They like neutral to acid soil so I am growing this in a pot. Well, I have to, I seem to have run out of garden space and this is quite a spreading shrub. But it is slow growing. I think my previous two might have died of drought and I think it is easier to remember to water plants in pots. If I had loads of room I think I would go for Corylopsis spicata as it is even more beautiful, but it is very spreading and needs plenty of space.

Also in a pot because it needs the ericaceous soil which I can’t provide for in the garden is Camellia ‘Jury’s Yellow’. I am very fond of this camellia because of the unusual colour and the rosette- like shape of the flowers.

The wealth of spring flowers spangling the garden right now makes it difficult to pick out just one or two. But I have a new ipheion which is such a pretty shade of pink. I used to grow ‘Charlotte Bishop’ but I think Ipheion ‘Dusky Pink’ is more striking. The leaves of this plant smell of onions but the flowers are sweetly scented.

I love corydalis and have quite a few different ones so I had to try one called ‘Berry Exciting’ which apparently was a mutation of ‘Blackberry Wine’ which I already have. The foliage of this one is said to be golden which of course translates as yellow. I can’t make up my mind whether the foliage looks nice and fresh and bright or slightly diseased. The flowers are quite pretty, but not as far as I’m concerned, ‘berry exciting’. I wonder what you think.

With so many beautiful spring flowers looking fabulous in the garden it seems a bit perverse to come into the conservatory for number six. But my bougainvillea has been in bloom for ages now and it is so pretty despite its neglect. In fact I thought it was dead as it had lost all its leaves but it is remarkably resilient. This plant was named after Louis Antoine, Comte de Bougainville who was the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the world. He was joined on the voyage by the naturalist, Philibert Commerson who named this lovely plant found in Brazil after the Captain. The interesting part of this story is that Commerson was accompanied by his ‘valet’, ‘assistant’ ‘lover’, ‘nurse’, call her what you will, Jeanne Baret. Jeanne bound up her breasts and disguised herself as a man to get on board and was the first woman to circumnavigate the world. She collected 6000 plant specimens, including Bougainvillea. It was not until they arrived in Tahiti that it was realised that she was a woman. Her remarkable story is told in a fascinating book: ‘The Discovery of Jeanne Baret’ by Glynis Ridley. I can recommend it as it is a fascinating read.

So there we are, just Six on Saturday, which does seem a shame as there are so many pretty things showing their spring faces right now. Do check our host Jim at Garden Ruminations to see more spring beauties.