Allium amplectens 'Graceful Beauty'

I don’t know about you, but it feels like summer has sneaked up on us and there is still so much to do! There was a cold north east wind all week here in the Cotswolds which made gardening a chore instead of the pleasure it usually is in late May. This Prostanthera cuneata, the Alpine mint bush, recommended by a good friend, has produced an amazing display of pure white flowers on mint scented foliage this year. Seems oblivious to anything the British climate can throw at it, despite its Australian origins.

These rather wayward Gladiolus byzantinus have found their way here from a big clump I dug up and split last year. I thought I had found them all, but apparently not. Despite their rather glamorous name, they have been a stalwart of the cottage garden for hundreds of years having been introduced from the eastern Mediterranean in the 1500’s.

This early flowering Allium amplectens ‘Graceful Beauty’ is a scruffy, grassy, spreading perennial which will take over a bed unless you are ruthless and selectively weed it out in early spring. However, for a few brief weeks in late May and early June it redeems itself with hundreds of pure white flowers which pollinators love.

This unusual rosy flowered garlic, Allium roseum, produces pretty pink scented flowers followed by tiny bulblets which will spread about and produce new plants if allowed. An edible Old World species of garlic which was apparently prized for its delicate flavour.

The first flowers of Rosa ‘Roald Dahl’ and ‘Boscobel’ accompanied by a froth of Nepeta faassenii ‘Kit Cat’. It’s going to be a good year for roses. The hard February pruning and a cold winter have produced strong new healthy growth which is being inspected daily by our resident Blue Tit family, picking off the aphids to feed their young.

Nature has kindly produced a greeny, creamy foxglove instead of the usual pink or white ones which are everywhere else in the garden. I rather like it and hope its offspring are the same colour next year, but I doubt it.