May Flowers

At this time of year in my favourite month of May it's all moving very fast in the garden and countryside, and already some of my favourite flowers have been and gone. My goodness, they were lovely. The hedgerows around us are at their best and I picked this frothy bunch of cow parsley, garlic mustard, plantains and wild catmint on my walk home from the gym last week.

The garden's looking very colourful in places at the moment, and these jolly bellis daisies are brightening up a dull spot under the honeysuckle arch.

Just looking at these sugary coloured pom poms makes me smile.

The softly-scented apple blossom came and went quite quickly, blown off the tree one windy and wet weekend. It was lovely while it lasted, though.

The Spanish bluebells were beautiful, creating large pockets of deep blue around the garden.

Their pink cousins are more dainty, and very pretty indeed. I think I like them better than their relatives.

In the pond (which is half a barrel of water, rocks and water-loving plants) the marsh marigold is as joyously yellow as ever, each flower a reflective little sun.

On my shed the blue clematis was fabulous. I love this plant. Each year I do nothing to it and it rewards me every spring with this delicious display of fabulous purpley-blueness. Wonderful.

This little clematis which I bought from a supermarket for £2 last year flowered very prettily this spring with these lovely mauve flowers. I can't wait for next year as it scrambles up the back of our garage.

The kerria has been as bright as ever and seems happier for the pruning I did last year.

And the cloudy rowan blossom promises lots of berries this summer. The birds will be pleased.

There's more yellow in the garden in the form of this very yellow geum which has just come into flower.

The pretty little blue-eyed grass is a tiny treasure at the moment,

Here's Clover sitting behind it, soaking up the sun.

And the deliciously citrus-scented mock orange has started to bloom. It's smell reminds me of eau-de-Cologne.

I treated myself this year to a lilac, a small variety which is suited to smaller gardens. The common lilac in the front garden needed a big prune last year and as a result had only a couple of blooms on it this year. Lilac is my favourite flower and perfume, so I'm going to grow this one in a container for a while before planting it. 

It does have some lovely flowers on it, and they smell heavenly.

Finally something else that's heavenly is the fabulous blue of the ceanothus in our front garden. We've had it a few years now, and it's a deep blue (it matches the front door!).

It's almost over now, but it has been wonderful.

Well, that's my May round-up of flowers. At this time of year there is so much floral loveliness around I find it hard to keep up - I can't believe that May is almost over, and I'm not quite sure where it went! We're just beginning half term here, so I'm planning to slow down, be creative and enjoy my week off. 

If you're on half term too I hope you have a lovely one and if you know someone who's in the middle of their GCSEs, like D is at the moment, I wish them luck and some time to relax too. I'm looking forward to being in Blogland a bit more this week. I'll leave you with some hedgerow photos, full of lacy cow parsley.

See you very soon x.