In many ways this is the best of times for my garden. The wisteria must be around fifty years old, planted long before we moved here, and every year puts on an incredible display not just of flowers but the scent. In its third year, the thug clematis Montana is also in full flower, climbing the old depleted rose and just crossing the supports and heading into the wisteria. At some stage soon I’ll have to decide whether or not to try and keep it cut hard back or let it ramble forever.

The clematis has been such a joy, that another has been added to climb the other very elderly, very depleted rose on the next upright post. Those clematis planted in the shady wooded section a year or so ago are still alive, but as you’d expect are a lot more challenged by conditions. Still in a dark dry spot, ‘not dead yet’ can be seen as something of a success. Given my time again, I would not have planted the euphorbia, but put in some Japanese anemones earlier. They run rampant but at least won’t give me latex burns as I pull them up.

The late tulips are looking beautiful with their pink/white/purple shades really standing out against the green. After all of the rain, there’s an awful lot of green. Clearly I should be weeding more or at least some. If nothing else maybe I should make the effort to move the campion and cornflowers from the rose beds to the meadow. Next month the rock roses planted last year should start to flower.

It’s not a bad time to consider what might be good for next year in terms of bulbs ie what has worked and what has not so far.

Add more to naturalise in the meadow – bluebells, dutch crocus, late narcissus (barenwyn) camassia quamash, tulip bakeri

Add to the shade garden and under the garden hedges – small narcissus (tete a tete), bluebells or crocus. Hopefully some foxgloves will start to appear as well.

For plants still to flower, maybe some more alliums would be a good thing tall and interesting in amongst the later taller grass. I do wonder whether eremus, or knipofia would work in a Summer meadow. It’s all rather green at the moment and to be honest though I can see something is growing by its foliage, I’m not really sure what to expect. If I’m lucky, a swathe of ox-eye daisies is about to arrive but they could be anything. I live in hope.

Certainly the early pink roses are just about to flower and light up the garden. The white roses arrive almost an entire month later but do have the benefit of being more disease resistant. If I was a good gardener, no doubt I’d spray for blackspot regularly, but of course I forget. Every time I look at them I’m reminded of my late neighbour who loved her roses so much and was so hugely encouraging when we moved into the house.

The garden has a succession of show-stopping plants, supported ideally by other less showy but more useful ones. Having planted in a number of rejected foxgloves, self-seeded into a friend’s vegetable plot, I’m hoping they’ll settle in and supplement my roses next month. Sadly the snails seem to be eating them faster than they can grow. I know that the RHS has taken snails off the pest list, but really…

Someone must have spent quite a reasonable time and effort getting rid of well-known thugs such as Mexican fleabane, woodruff, hardy geraniums, forget-knots etc since I had to ask friends for cuttings. No doubt I’ll spend the last ten years of my life here trying to get rid of them so the next owner can start the cycle all over again.

The roses always will remind of my neighbour, the fleabane from the friend who taught my girls at Sunday school, the London Pride from my mother-in-law, the foxgloves from one of my best friends. Perhaps the sweetest part of gardening is the collection of plants from friends family and neighbours, the stories and memories they bring to mind.