Galloping Growth and Spring Panic

Pics of my garden

I could write a whole rambling post about how the spring garden reflects so perfectly that thing of watching your children growing up faster and faster and getting away from you and you wanting to scream STOP!…STOP!… JUST PLEASE JUST STOP FOR A MOMENT! but I can’t give it my full attention because, well because come mid March, panic starts to rise within me along with the sap. Suddenly everyone and everything seems to need my attention. The effect of this, of course is a sense of guilt which in turn wakens the rebel in me and I seem to become paralysed, rather than just doing the little more that is required. How silly.

All this is to say that the seeds I’ve been meaning to sow haven’t seen the light of day yet, and my desk is truly horrifying, and there are messages in my phone and on my computer that need answering, and important people that I have been neglecting. Plans for the holidays need to be made too. I actually feel a bit sick writing about it. “But it’s easy…just make a list and do each thing one by one” says the sensible voice in my head.

Here then, are some wonderful things to celebrate rather than panic about, and I will leave these with you as I finally tackle the long to-do list.

Tiny bulb table! The reticulata have had their day and are now gone, and the crocuses and bulbicodium are almost over too….time for more narcissi and muscari joy. Here are a few more pics:

The absolute star of the tiny bulb show is, predictably, the thing I’ve spent the least time on; a bowl of scilla sibirica which I planted the year before last, in November of 2023. This beautiful bowl was a present from Butter Wakefield and the scilla were an absolute joy last year. Over the summer the bowl was used as a perfect sleeping spot by my cat Daphne. She would curl up on it all day long in the sun. I really thought that this year the scilla wouldn’t come back and that I ought to have replanted it, until a couple of weeks ago when they began to appear. In fact, they are better this year than they were last year. Of COURSE they are! God I love them…I LOVE them so much…there is something so perfect about that blue…

Then there are budding things:

Here, above left, is Cecile Brunner being fabulous, and my poor stressed amelanchiers which have been rudely moved and replanted are budding up in places.

Akebia, honeysuckle and osmanthus…

And then there is that absolutely workhorse Clematis armandii - just starting to bloom:

There, that’s it. Enough. Onwards.

Do let me know what low-effort thing is paying dividends in your garden (or your life in general). I am putting together a list of them and would love any suggestions.

Back soon…

x Laetitia