In my dreams my garden is elegant and restrained. It might even be one of those beautiful white only “outside rooms” that people talk about.

In reality, my garden is pretty. It has too many plants and too many colours to come even remotely close to “elegant”.

And yet every year I seem to find more space to cram in yet more flowers. This year I’m happy to have planted some mini-narcissus under the hedge and it’s looking good. There’s still a gap on the fritelaria bed so there’s some more room free for planting up bulbs next Autumn.

 

But what I have never really invested in are seed catalogues yet this year they’ve arrived and there is some space around the new roses to be filled.

In the end I’ve decided that nigella will grow and look good against the pale pink roses. maybe they’ll form one of those artistic elegant drifts but probably not. Having done this before with nigella, I do know that if I scatter the seeds about, they’ll certainly grow and grow.

 

In fact it’s likely to take years to get rid of the beggars if I decide that I don’t like them after all. I’ve dabbled with the idea of zinnia or salvia.

And who wouldn’t love cosmos growing in their flower beds.

Poppies and nigella are on their way. The sweetpeas are about to be planted in their coir pots and all is well with the crocus and narcissus sparkling bright and sharp amongst the greenery.

This is going to be a good year for the garden.