Through the garden gate--May

May is a lovely month in the garden.. My garden is looking so fresh and green  as new growth  emerges. I have been enjoying watching the changes as plants have come through and flowered. Now at the end of the month everything is so big and lush. We had a spell of lovely warm, sunny weather earlier in the month, but now at the end of the month it's cooler, but we did get some welcome rain.

We did some work this month on making the front and side garden borders bigger so we could get more plants in. I have spent some time planting up these borders with perennials. We made a new border by the gate.  Its a bit shady there next to the holly tree, so I planted hostas, aquilegias, a white camasia, a blue hardy geranium and a white dicentra. There is a blue white and yellow colour scheme here. One of the aquilegias is white and is really lovely as is the camasia which is only just coming into flower now.

In the back garden the raised beds are looking very colourful. The alliums were magnificent and are just starting to go over. The beds are looking very full and I wondered if I planted too many plants when we first did these beds nearly two years ago. But my intention was to create a cottage garden effect and that is what it is.  When we sit on the seating area next to the raised beds we can hear the constant noise of bees buzzing away. They are obviously happy so we must be doing the right thing for the wildlife.

Acer

Last month I wrote about our new crab apple tree bought with birthday money. This month I spent the rest of the money on an acer and a big pot to grow it in. It is in a corner of the patio with a few other shrubs in pots. The patio is becoming a favourite place to sit now that we have completed our new garden. The Gertrude Jekyll climbing rose which I planted in the autumn to grow up the arch has loads of flowers which smell wonderful, I'm really pleased with it.

There are others flowers which are looking good now.  The foxgloves are out. I love these flowers.

Foxgloves

Astrantia

I bought this persicaria last summer, it was quite a big plant so I split it up into four smaller ones to plant along the border. I wasn't sure if they would survive being messed about, but they are doing really well now. This one looks good next to the pink Thalictrum at the back of the border.

Persicaria and Thalictrum

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post.