A Good Spring
Sun-kissed, slightly parched, full of flowery floof and just a little flopage
While the gardening world obsesses over RHS Chelsea I thought I’d sidle into your inbox with a long-overdue real garden update and… Oh my goodness! Where did the time go?!
One moment I was gearing up for spring, gazing dreamily at the fresh zesty mounds of foliage, jotting down a few ideas for my newsletters, feeling that sense of excitement and anticipation as the new season unfolds and pulls us gently out of winter…
In a flash, the air shifted from heady wafts of narcissus and hyacinths to fruity wisteria and nostalgia-filled lilac. I’m now wading through an overflowing garden path, delighting in butterflies dancing over burgeoning borders and blowsy blooms, while bees bumble lazily through the garden.
Thirsty potted plants are already panting for a splash of the good stuff and my feathered friends are not far behind. Bobbin (the robin) has been busy and his brood are all over the Terrace, seeing who can squawk the loudest for a meal. There are fluffy fledgling blackbirds, thrushes, and finches everywhere, and I’m refreshing the bird baths daily.
The calendar says Summer is now just moments away! Crikey! For peat’s sake, slow down there boy! Phew, let me catch my breath…
So, firstly, apologies for the radio silence. It was unintentional. I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun! Secondly, a huge bear-hugging “Hello” from a slightly parched corner of the North Wessex Downs. I have been here, happily working away in the garden. Letting the springtime hypomania fill me with boundless energy and creativity, as I busily refresh and ready the garden for the year ahead.
And loving every minute of it, I might add.
It has been a Good Spring. What do I mean by that? After the wall-to-wall deluge throughout winter, a succession of ‘dry’ weeks was just what the doctor (and psychiatrist) ordered. Cabin-fever… cured. The spring weather has been very obliging. Generous with both sunlight and warmth. Arguably, a little too generous maybe.
We’ve had barely an inch of rain since March. My Weekly Watering schedule (yes I have a schedule because I am a garden nerd) was initiated weeks earlier than normal. Even though the month of May has us all clinging nervously to our sheets of fleece, on the whole, Spring 2026 has been fabulous!
My moods (if you’re new here, I am bipolar) have been gentle and, dare I say, unusually kind. Typically, my mania ends abruptly with a resounding crash, swiftly followed by a nasty fallout of irritability, frustration, and truly explosive anger. It is not a pleasant sight. Temper in the style of a Bomb!
This year? It’s been a silky smooth transition, waxing and waning in gentle order. The body is a little tired, for sure, but I am in a good place. And it’s rather lovely to be able to say that. But enough about me and my head shenanigans. What about the garden, I hear you cry! Let’s take a look…
Spring gardening has broadly fallen into two camps: Garden Haarrrrd v Garden Gentle. New terminology for us, but they really encapsulate the year so far:
The Garden Haarrrrd List
Building raised beds for the Cutting Garden.
Mulching the Flower Garden.
Planting a huge Agriframes RHS Heritage zinc planter with a climbing Iceberg rose.
Scarifying the Cottage Garden to remove mountainous mounds of moss, only to rip the whole thing up weeks later to lay new turf. (Reseeding was a spectacular failure!)
Planting two mature Japanese Maples into the ground after years of languishing in pots. They were tiny twiggy Costco specials that now span over 6ft in all directions.
Repotting every Hydrangea paniculata.
Repainting shady table and dividing a few big hostas. While I was there I checked all the pots for those sly and unscrupulous slugs and snails. Scraped off the old compost and detritus, topped up with fresh compost and fed.
Felling our Himalayan Birch, killed by last year’s drought (so sad I almost cried… I still might).
Rescuing the rather sorry-looking Ilex crenata balls. They were suffering terribly in their rusty old pots that held about as much moisture as a colander. Now revived in well-drained rich compost, they’ll be cloud pruned next season.
Just an observation…
…but it’s probably fair to assume that most under 40s are yet to marvel at the true wonder of middle-aged bodily noises. (No, I don’t mean those 💨) I mean the ones that emerge after several consecutive days of gardening haarrrrd. Every physical movement suddenly requires a decrepit sigh, grunt, or moan… so everyone within a five-mile radius can hear the effort and, inadvertently, recognise your age.
It is a curse. I have no idea when it started. Sitting down. Standing up. Kneeling down. Standing up again. Bent over. Standing up yet again. Lifting anything heavier than a tissue… It’s ridiculous.
The Garden Gentle List
Gleefully picking my first ever rhubarb stems. A joy. Even better, scoffing the rhubarb and ginger cake Jacq baked using Jane Lovett’s recipe (shared at the end but do check out Jane’s website too). The cake is lush! Enjoy warm with cream or custard, then as a moist crumbly cake the next day. Divine!
Harvesting those first salad leaves. A milestone in the growing year. My rocket (arugula) has NEVER been better. Is it the combination of SylvaGrow Seed Compost and my DIY lighting rig? The attention to watering? Planting out at the perfect time? Maybe dosing the beds with Nematodes to reduce the slug population? The mild and sunny spring? All of the above! Whatever it was, the crop has been immense.
Gently lifting a couple of ailing peonies, planted rather foolishly in too much shade and with too dry soil. They’re now cosying up in rich compost-filled (deep) pots and enjoying a little TLC. Two candidates for the ever expanding Cutting Garden. In their place, two Aquilegia “Green Apples”, double white blooms with a hint of green, enjoying the dappled sunlight of the Cottage Garden.
Planting out a selection of plants bought last year but hastily overwintered round the side of the house. In October, my brain went AWOL, and all gardening ceased. So it’s wonderful to see these plants come back to life and finally find a home. Alongside salvias and veronicastrums and host of shade lovers, several dahlia tubers that survived sitting in their buckets of wet compost all winter. And a rash of Verbena bonariensis seedlings lifted from the gravel paths.
Removing Rudbeckia laciniata, the shouty-yellow colossus that caused such consternation last year. It is VERY yellow and just grabbed too much attention as it swayed about, waving at me, being… just… soooooo yellow. I moved some portions to the very back of the borders… but most have been potted up for delivery to my cousin Jo. (May it be happy in pastures new where it can taunt onlookers with its sheer unabashed yellowness.)
In the rather massive space left behind, a light and whimsical blend of Salvia ‘Amistad’, veronicastrums, Verbena bonariensis, daisy-type dahlias, Molinia ‘Transparent’, sanguisorbas, Knautia macedonica, and Digitalis lutea.
Getting in the supports uber early. I bought a selection of grow-through frames from Agriframes and PlantSupports.co.uk, just to support the nepetas, salvias, and monster Rozannes, of which there are many and all susceptible to major flopage after big rains. Small hoops and cones around the gaura just to keep them upright and airy. Taller grow-throughs for delphiniums. And of course all the peony cages. There are still plenty of hoops left for the overenthusiastic shrub roses.
Perhaps Not ‘Gardening’ Exactly
Installing little LED uplights has been rather fun. I saw them in my parent’s garden. My father, never one to hold back an honest review, is the perfect guinea pig to try these things first. So, I bought a few sets and placed them out in the Cottage Garden. Positioned so they backlight the yew topiary, gothic rose arch, white bench, and the Japanese maples.
It worked so well, dear reader, I bought another set for the Terrace, again backlighting the Japanese maples. They create a wonderfully engaging sense of theatre. The transformation from day to night is quite magical. Especially valuable during the long winter nights. But even now with late evenings, having those feathery leaves gently fluttering in a soft glow in the twilight puts a huge smile on my face.
I also bought a fire pit, hence the cold spell. Apologies. My bad.
I’ll be back soon…
…with a full garden tour. We’re just days away from the garden’s early summer zenith. Countless roses will fill the air with luxuriant perfume, while thousands of gently nodding geranium and geum flowers hide their bare thorny legs. Peonies bowing under giant frilly blooms. Blue delphiniums towering. Foliage everywhere, fresh and zesty green.
The Courtyard has been reshuffled. The Kitchen Garden is cropping. The Flower Garden will soon be filled to the brim with flowery floof. It’s all happening now.
There is sooooooo much lushness. The mild spring has produced sappy growth in abundance and I’m watching the roses with trepidation, already heavy with bursting buds. I’m not sure those stems will hold such voluptuous blooms, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m certainly not pruning it all back now.
Besides, there’s nowt wrong with a bit of flopage ;-)
So, here’s to summer, you gorgeous gardeners. I hope wherever you are, and whatever you’re growing, you find time to sit quietly amongst it all and enjoy what you’ve created. If you think about it, sitting down and enjoying your garden isn’t time wasted. It’s time savoured. Gardens are far too beautiful to rush past.
Your fellow plant wrangler,
Elliott 💚
P.s. As ever, feel free to ask me anything!
Jane Lovett’s Exceedingly Sticky Rhubarb & Ginger Cake
A pudding or a cake, warm, or cold - it’s up to you. As the flavours of rhubarb and elderflower are a marriage made in heaven, I like to serve this with elderflower infused crème fraîche.
Serves 8
110g (4 oz) butter, softened
110g (4 oz) self-raising flour
110 g (4 oz) caster sugar
½ tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
4-5 sticks of young rhubarb, cut into
2.5cm (1 in) chunks
2 large bulbs of stem ginger, thinly sliced, plus a little of their syrup 2-3 tbsp demerara sugar, plus a little extra icing sugar
GET AHEAD
Make up to 2 days in advance, cool, cover and store in the fridge or freeze.
HINTS AND TIPS
Eat at room temperature or warmed gently in a medium oven for 15 minutes or so before required.
Preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F) gas 3. Grease and line the base of a 20 cm (8 in) cake tin with a disc of greaseproof paper.
• Place all the ingredients except the rhubarb, ginger, demerara and icing sugar into the bowl of a food processor and blitz for 20-25 seconds until well mixed. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and spread evenly. Arrange the rhubarb pieces on top, pushing them slightly into the raw cake mixture. Dot the slices of stem ginger between the rhubarb and drizzle over some of the syrup - about 2 teaspoons. Scatter the top with demerara sugar to almost cover, but not entirely.
Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Test by sticking a skewer into the middle. If it comes out clean, the cake is cooked. Leave in the tin for five minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack. Peel off the paper and scatter over some demerara sugar.
Dust with icing sugar before serving.
These days I like to use 1/2 caster sugar & 1/2 light muscovado sugar which gives the most wonderful deep toffee caramel-y flavour
Ah, such a lovely, relatable read! Thank you! Garden fever is upon us all...
You have been busy! So pleased that the warmer weather is here. Nothing better than getting outside first thing. I’m absolutely going to be making that cake too.