It's the most wonderful time of the year......

As the song goes.

The upside of the wet spring has been the phenominal growth of plants (wanted and unwanted...my spare time is spent weeding) and they have stayed in flower longer. On recent sunny evenings it has been absolute joy to wander round looking at everything and listening to the phenominal birdsong. I am sure I heard a nightjar the other evening and early each morning we are getting a fantastic chorus which I do not remember having heard before. We also have goldfinches nesting in two Italian cypress trees....a first for us and very exciting.

I am a lazy gardener. I am not good at sowing and pricking out and potting on. I let things grow where they are happy and if there are a few seedlings which have self sown naturally then I assume the plant is content in that environment and put the seedlings somewhere similar. Consequently we do not have a massive variety of plants in the garden, but the things we do have seem at home. Successes are (currently) valerian, several species of euphorbia - characias, myrsinites, martinii (to a limited degree) and robbiae. I also have one self sown seedling of a variety called Portuguese Velvet which is pretty. I am not fond of the euphorbias which die back each year and shoot up like aspargus each spring (griffithii - take note) and have not tried them here. Two species of hellebore - orientalis and foetidus are finally seeding like mad all over the place and my phlomis has lots of tiny offspring ready to be moved this autumn.

Failures include alchemilla mollis, but I keep trying it in different places as I love it. Geums disappear after one season. I have had problems with clematis, although montana takes over. and sage will not flourish. I have successfully prematurely terminated the lives of several hydrangea arborescens annabelle, which grieves me as it is my favourite and other people grow it easily.

Tomorrow is our flower show in Monsegur and I want to look for a couple of things. Firstly perovskia, a wonderful purple flowered member of the nettle family which can easily be mistaken for a lavender. It flowers like mad throughout the summer and is good company for gauras, which make it fantastic for a garden you want to look good if you are only here in the summer holidays. I would also like to expand my collection of geraniums, which have also done well this spring.

Here are some photos:

Valerian...I bought one plant several years ago and this year there are seedlings all over the place. I love it because it flowers throughout the summer and requires minimal maintenance.

Our wisteria, which was wonderful this year. We are very lucky with the particular strain we have because it continues to flower all summer; not to this extent of course, but it still makes its presence felt.

Phlomis, or Jerusalem sage...lots of little seedlings are waiting to find new homes this autumn. Conversenly, genuine sage does not thrive at all here. The yellow flower does not last long, but the leaves are a lovely silvery colour and the seed heads are very attractive right into the winter. A good structural addition to the border.

I hope the sun shines tomorrow and we find the plants we want!