In the garden: Six on Saturday at the start of June 2025

What a change in the weather and light conditions from just a few weeks ago.  We were away house sitting for a son of a friend.  Wow their garden was huge, but I hope I left it in good condition. As well as being cooler with rain, we have had some unusual winds here. For insights into what several gardeners and plant enthusiasts are writing about this week, the place to go is is 'Garden Ruminations', where Jim is the custodian of our weekly musings.

1. Early morning is the time to catch the poppies about to cast off the outer sepals and then unfold their creased chiffon like petals, the pale early morning light enhancing the ethereal look, and their grey green glaucous foliage. 

They are coming up all over the garden, but are easily removed.  I will keep a few plants up until I can harvest the seed heads, which I enjoy arranging and also save the seed to use in my bread making.

2. Over in the gravel garden this small low growing Teucrium pyrenaicum, I acquired last year, is one the bees just love.

Teucrium pyrenaicum 

However it was too early to catch the bees visiting, they are rather later rises!

3. Over towards Gooseberry Corner, the gooseberries are doing their thing, and we have already had a good picking from Gooseberry Invicta, but this picture is from  Gooseberry Hinnonmaki Red. Its berries are much smaller than last year, probably due to the very warm and dry months, but we are now into a much cooler and damp period, so maybe the more immature berries will swell a little.  So far the squirrels have been completely content with eating all the apples on D'Arcy Spice, but there are only two or three left and I may be in for a shock one morning to find the berries stripped!

Gooseberry Hinnonmaki Red

4. I'm not going to mention scent from roses as the ones in the garden here pale into insignificance compared to the ones at Sissinghurst, which we visited last week.  However there is perfume coming from the Valeriana officinalis, which has self seeded itself towards Gooseberry Corner.

5. The clump forming Phalaris arundinacea probably needs to be reduced this year, but for now it makes a lovely addition setting off several plants, such as the white arum and darker plants behind.

6. I kept the thickening long stems in a pollarding fashion and all the green is this year's growth.  This is a hardy Fuchsia, name unknown, and it has now been in flower since first weeks of May, but is now forming a colourful pop up against the garden/cemetery stone wall. 

I have mixed views regarding the various gardens we visited, but gradually thoughts about my own garden are readjusting in light of what I saw. Hopefully during the week, I shall get to upload a few of the pictures I took along with some thoughts in a few posts.