After what seems like the driest year since we’ve moved here, came a storm with rain and wind to compare with any save a hurricane. Even the creeping jenny has struggled with the dryness.
The garden has always had an element of chaos but now that’s tipped over into a bit of a mess.
And a yellow iris that has appeared this year from nowhere.
There are the usual waifs and strays: the poppies, the foxgloves, the ever-spreading violets etc
Wandering violets
And if anything, I’m happy to see them arrive and thrive. Next year I might actually buy and plant some foxgloves, pink for the sunshine and white for the shade.
But if last month was all about the tulips, this month is about the geraniums, light and dark throughout the garden and also rather earlier than usual, about the roses.
The old pink and yellow roses seem to be thriving.
And the new rose babies are flowering and looking healthy.
Apparently it takes three years before they come into their own and I’m really quite excited by the row of roses.
The bees are still bumbling along the wallflowers
And will the spread of the fleabane ever come to an end.
It’s second only to the shady garden’s geraniums which have run riot (not in an especially good way).
It is true that white flowers show best through the shady doom and gloom. 
Whilst the geraniums are beautiful flowers, there seems little room for anything else at the moment.
The wild garlic has gone over, and the ferns are starting to unfurl.
And every so often the yellow meconopsis pokes through the green.
Down in the rather messy fritelaria bed, the huge alliums have also gone over.
and we were left with huge seed heads, until the winds blew through and smushed them to smithereens
So far the watering regime has held good and neither the hanging baskets nor the tiny dry bed on top of the sleeper wall has died a death. Yet.
In general the new rose bed is thriving though a little underwhelming as a baby bed.
The silver leaf shoved into the ground a few years ago rather than throw it out after 6 months in a hanging basket is much bigger and more vigorous than any rescue plant has a right to be. One day I’ll be okay with throwing plants out but I’m not there yet.
Up on top of the garage, the gravel bed is growing a bit too well.
The little alliums, the molys are really perking up the whole thing with a splash of yellow.
And the sedums are beginning to do their thing
Along with the sanguine geranium, some alpine penstemon and of course the pinks.
Mostly the plants planted into the gravel mimic their larger counterparts in the large beds, including a very sweet rock rose.
And the erysimum (wallflower) next to the aubrietia,
But the thrift in the gravel has gone over, where as down in the shadier beds it still has time to run.
And everywhere you look, fleabane growing away and possibly stringing out other beauties.
Though of course the bees don’t care.
And neither do the cats.
Despite warning about the use of white(-ish) bedding the pelargoniums are working well, along with begonias in the shade.
Shady Pots
Down in the courtyard the alchemical is looking lovely and the ferns starting to look lush.
But no matter how I try to appreciate the greens, it is the show stopper pins and reds that blow me away.
And with the larger penstemons just about to appear, the year is likely to get better and better.
