It’s been a bit of a mad rush recently. After the heavy rains of March and early April and before the heat of the summer sun sets the earth rock solid, I’ve been busy making the final touches to my English Cottage Garden. If you remember last year I’d started turning what was once patchy and forlorn looking grass just outside the office into something more elegant and fragrant. Like the little hamster I am, I sped off to all my favourite garden centres returning mission accomplished bearing armfuls of plants and seeds capable of surviving our summers and, truth be told, sometimes our cold, frosty winters. Yet one plant proved elusive and which would have been for me, the ‘icing on my cottage garden cake’, a Lady’s Mantle, Alchemilla mollis. So imagine my surprise and delight when I found it this year and bought, not just one plant (which of course would have sufficed as they self-seed with total abandon) but four. Happy Days!

While creating my cottage garden it was also very important to me that I make it bee and butterfly friendly. I thus paid special attention to growing their favourite plants as well as leaving a few nettles as caterpillar food. So now I have this wonderful hotchpotch of cottage garden plants such as forget-me-nots, foxgloves, ferns, buddleia, and campanula mixed in with runner beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, peppers, lavender (of course) and snapdragons all interspersed with thyme, mint, chives, sage, rosemary and nasturtiums. Many are still young plants that will need time to grow and develop and while most are in the ground, others jostle side by side in big earthenware pots. Photographed here is a carpenter bee enjoying a restful moment on the petals of a mauve iris growing down by our pool house. These are Big Boys with Character. On more than one occasion I have found myself face to face with one of these guys and they do not give way, standing their ground or, more frightening, matching your every move so all you can do is back off slowly. Scary.

I also tend to squirrel away tubers, crowns or bulbs everywhere and then forget where I’ve put them or what they are when they finally poke through. Such was the case a couple of weeks ago when a rather smart looking plant surfaced. Wow I thought, this is great, believing it to be the peony I’d planted a year or so ago. Which of course I had but not there. In fact, much to my embarrassment (after showing off my green fingers to Nigel) this rather gorgeously leafed plant turned out to be a humble yellow buttercup. The real peony was round the front of the house lodged between my vines and honeysuckle and completely hidden from view - until it blossomed into pure pink magic.

While I truly love watching my garden grow and delight at the sight of a seedling growing purposefully, I find it is the unexpected discoveries I love the best and afford me such special moments. Like finding the elusive Lady’s Mantle or a group of bluebells hidden in some undergrowth or enjoying the sight of masses of hollyhocks, plants that once lay dormant for years and now return in abundance. Long may I hope to continue discovering these special moments!