Garden in May

I like making a note of the seasons, and every year it is different.  I love to mark the first picking of the red climbing rose which is usually the first to flower in the garden.  Etoile de Holland this year is doing very well.  With careful pruning in early March, when I picked off every leaf to avoid any black spot, and good feeding, together the grey squirrels not having the buds as their  snack of choice, the plant is now in full flower.  It keeps on flowering all year, with flushes often going up till Christmas.

The first roses were picked around the 15th of May. The colour is rich, the flowers huge, the bud shape beautiful, and the scent most fragrant, so much so that if you put them in a room, close the door, then re enter a few hours later, you cannot but smile and know that no artificial room scent can come close to this.

Each year at the WI in January, we pass round a list for us to fill in our names agreeing to undertake various 'tasks', and back then I thought of volunteering for the Chairman's Table Flowers and Birthday posies, and chose May.

For the Chairman's Table I chose a simple bunch of Lily of the Valley, and in the end why gild the lily, over fifty stems and a few leaves.  Afterwards I offered these to our Chairman, and a couple of days later received a really charming email from Kaye.

For the birthday posies: red roses, lily of the valley and a few more blooms.  I like to pick the flowers first thing, and stand them right up to their necks in a bucket of water, then arrange them later.  There were four birthdays, and I made an extra one in case we had any visitors with birthdays that month.  After making them, I stood them on the front window sill.

Of course like a child, I marvel at the drops of dew, as I walk down the garden early ...I always have