June 2025

Many flowers appear in June, looking their best surrounded by fresh new greenery. Roses burst forth along with several garden border favourites and the poppies. Their brilliant red flowers appear every year in the wilder areas of our garden along with unusual pastel variations, which are a throwback to when we grew a lot of Shirley poppies here years ago.

There is a wonderful poppy poem by our Poet Laureate Simon Armitage called ‘In Retrospect’ which can be found easily online. In it he beautifully describes the qualities of the poppy, its resilience and significance.

‘in fallow fields and railway sidings, on roundabouts, verges and no man’s land, from the brickwork of old chimneys and bridges and cracks in the pavement……’ 

May 2025

The sunshine of this year’s Mayday brings out the colour of every petal and leaf giving the garden a brilliance not seen for many months! Spring has put on her best and brightest show for us this year, which along with the chorus of birdsong, certainly gladdens the heart. This picture is of the quince tree which we planted over 25 years ago. Its blossom is my favourite of all, from the tiny deep pink buds to the fully opened delicate floaty blooms, which this year are more numerous than ever. I am hopeful of a good harvest of quinces for jelly-making this year; some years there may be just one or two!

April 2025

This morning I went round the garden early and picked a few flowers for the breakfast table. My favourite here is the Blackthorn blossom, a froth of tiny white flowers borne on thin black spiny twigs. The pot is made from a creamy clay, and was dug up here many years ago; I often wonder who it belonged to before it became mine.

So far this month I have completed two birth samplers and am now working on a collection of fifty embroidered posies to be mounted on the front of wedding invitations. It is lovely to be a little part of these happy times in others’ lives.

As a gardener as well as an embroiderer, as ever at this time of year I am very busy sewing and sowing; lots of hand cream at the ready!