The garden in May
Kari-Astri Davies is enjoying emerging spring blooms and preparing her garden for the months ahead
May announces its arrival with grumbles of thunder accompanied by dramatic violet-grey skies. In my mind’s eye, I recall other Mays. The intense, almost too intense, smoky blueness of an immense Ceanothus in full flower in a park, dramatically illuminated by a shaft of sun against a looming cloud. In Bath, pale lilacs backlit against a dark sky. A fractious wind loosing petals, sending them swirling along the street to gather in drifts of cherry pink, cream horse chestnut and yellow laburnum. Ephemeral, beautiful May.
Morning walk
If the weather is clement, my old black and white cat may deign to join me on her wobbly legs for the wood bed walk. Picking her way along the path, she’ll sit at the end and wait for me to finish the inspection. Everything in the wood bed is fresh: great ribbed leaves of unfolding hostas, arching stems of Solomon’s seal, dripping with green-tipped, white-belled flowers; succulent, unfurling ferns. I poke around looking for the first signs of the exotic pink-and-white-striped trumpets of Arisaema candidissimum. Various lily of the valley are in flower, including the odd-flowered Convallaria majalis ‘Prolificans’. Until I looked more closely, I’d assumed it had double flowers: not so. It bears florets made up from single flowers. The knobbed buds of peony ‘Molly the Witch’ are on the cusp of opening out into delicious, but fleeting, pale lemony-green goblets. Onto the main borders, where, at last, plants are pushing up, jostling for room. Dame’s violet, Hesperis matronalis alba, is in full flower, richly scenting the air. Camassia, starting with mid blue C. quamash and finishing with paler blue C. leichtlinii hybrids, provide a wash of cool colour among the greens of new foliage. At the front of the border, the small light blue and yellow flowers of Iris sibirica ‘Summer Sky’ will soon pass the baton to heftier, later-flowering deep-blue ‘Riverdance’ in the middle of the border.
Veg patch
There’s planting out to be done, including tomatoes, squash and courgettes. Last year was a lousy one for production in the veg patch. Of the different types of squash planted out in late May, only ‘Potimarron’ set one small, stunted fruit. The crop from three courgette plants totalled four
“While from the purpling east departs The star that led the dawn, Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts, For May is on the lawn.” William Wordsworth, ‘Ode Composed On A May Morning’
courgettes; so much for a glut. The three-bed veg rotation meant that runner beans were at the courgette and squash end. The beans provided too much shade, hence, I think, the poor performance. This year, it’s potatoes, which won’t be such an issue. In the greenhouse, I tried melons again, this time ‘Minnesota Midget’, said to be a reliable cropper. The plants succumbed to powdery mildew. A website tip was to spray both sides of the leaves with a one part milk to three parts water mix, which seemed to help. By the time I’d done this, it was too late. Tomatoes also let me down. ‘Black Brandywine’ was planted out in the greenhouse in full flower at the end of May, and although it carried on, not one tomato set. I tried sweet potatoes for the first time last year; five different varieties bought as slips. They were potted up, then planted out in early June in soil mixed with compost to lighten it, in the sunniest spot. By diggingup time in October, there was nothing at all, only roots. Seeds of squashes ‘Honey Boat Delicata’ and ‘Potimarron’ were sown in early May. Tomatoes will be planted out at the end of the month in the greenhouse, including ‘Gardener’s Delight’. This reliable cherry tomato will surely work. I’ll try the melon again, but give sweet potatoes a miss.