The garden is really beginning to get going now. The mixed hedge between us and the field that wraps around us is fully out, with blossom from hawthorn, crab apple and blackthorn. We had a succession of blossom from our fruit trees, starting with damson, then pear, then apple, but that’s finished now, and little fruitlets are beginning to form.

The tulips in pots and the garden are all but finished too, with the exception of a new variety we tried, in the white border, called ‘White Triumphator’…

The Viburnum plicatum f.tomentosum ‘Mariesii’. is looking at it’s best now too…

To it’s left is a Ceanothus (I think it’s ‘Puget’s Blue’), which is making a great combination with neighbouring plants on both sides. It’s set off beautifully by the purple hazel (Corylus maxima ‘Purpurea’) behind, and goes well with the pale pink tree peony in front. The rose in the left foreground, (Gertrude Jekyll’) is about to burst into rich pink flower – if the peony can hold on until then, this will complete the picture…

Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawick Purple’ is starting to take shape – it’s been in the ground for three or four years now…

In the sunny rockery at the end of the garden Lithodora diffusa ‘Heavenly Blue’ is stunning; here being raided for nectar by a busy bee…

This Laburnum is a seedling I rescued from a customer’s garden (they didn’t want or have room for another)…

Around the pond the camassias flowered almost unnoticed. In our thin, dry soil they have turned out to be weedy little plants. The Siberian irises are another matter, having grown strongly and been split numerous times in the five years we’ve been here, and now spread across the garden. They will soon be out and, unlike the camassias, should produce a spectacular show.

Things move fast in the garden at this time of year, and it’s easy to miss things, or feel that you haven’t made the most of them. We’re currently engaged in the mammoth task of pulling out the sea of pale blue forget-me-nots before they drop millions of seeds, and looking forward to waves of colour spreading across the garden. The only spectre is the potential for another damaging drought. We haven’t had rain for weeks now, and there isn’t any forecast for the foreseeable future. I guess this is what climate change looks like.