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  • 2 days ago
Following weeks of cold and rain last month, April showers have given way to a few weeks of warm, sunny days and the combination of the two has acted like a booster resulting in many plants coming on leaps and bounds and flowering far earlier than they normally would. 
Hopefully it’s not just a case that they sense something we don’t and that we’re in for another awful, wet summer. I probably shouldn’t even say that for fear of jinxing us all, but it’s very unusual to have so many summer plants blooming away a good six weeks before they’d normally be doing so in our climate. 

Not that I’m complaining. The weather through the early part of May has been beautiful - I’m writing this in advance under blue skies before I head off on holidays for a bit – and looking around you can see gardens everywhere are filling out fast with pops of colour emerging and many people already on their second or third lawn mowing of spring. 
Transcript
00:00so today i'm just going to take you around and show you what's blooming in may
00:25and here there's a little butterfly coming through there here is the lunaria that's all their
00:35pennies as you can see they're now going over um they are reaching the end of their flowering season
00:42and the seed heads now they're starting to form these are quite soft at the moment you can actually
00:48see the seeds developing inside them and then when they harden up then you'll be able to peel them
00:52back and use them as dried flowers or for arrangements or something like that
01:01they look quite beautiful blown on the wand even after they've stopped flowering there's more over
01:07there as you can see and they have reached about five feet tall and
01:13so i'll just leave them in the ground that's an ornamental um down here we have smaller white
01:23flowers these are all radishes just add a touch of uh like little splashes of paint across the
01:30different things and over there blooming is brussel sprouts that's uh ones i just let go to seed and
01:40then you can see there now the big tall spikes of yellow lemon yellow flowers also going over now are
01:48the wallflowers which have i would definitely grow these again they're about six months
01:54grew growing since december and the bees really love them as well as the lunaria
02:01another thing growing in the garden at the moment is another thing flowering actually is aquilegia you
02:12can see one there i have some more yellow ones out the front as well they were all going from seed last
02:19year and they'll come back every year which is a good thing about them most of the plants in this bed here
02:25are biennial or annual plants and i have a lot more they plant on it as well but a few of them will
02:32come back every year there's lupines up the back they're not flowering yet down here we have sweet
02:36william and you can see now the flower heads starting to develop on them they were planted last year as
02:45well a lot of these things survive the winter grand um so up here we have some oxide daisies ready to open
02:52not be long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long
03:22and then one that's flowering very early this year is the kilangela
03:30i'll move my hand over here so you can see there a couple of different types of kilangela
03:39and these are great growers they these will grow all summer right through the autumn and they need
03:45no care no maintenance they're edible and you can throw them in a solid people make ointments and
03:50everything i don't but a great flower to have just a pop of color everywhere up the back here
04:00i don't know like kilangela and some of the other things growing on here at the moment you can see
04:04the hollyhock i have sweet pea along the back they'll not take off for a while yet i don't think
04:12like lupine these were all seed growing as well over the past year or so
04:15silly bee here making his way up a poppy and
04:23i have some cornflowers ready to open as well
04:28some sweet aliceum in there and these are canterbury bells which are
04:34coming up now you can see a few different spikes of them it's this one here and they should
04:41get a bit higher and then release all these blue bells over the next few weeks that's everything in
04:51that bed and i'll take you around the front to show you what else is in bloom so it's been unseasonably
04:58warm here so i'm just going to show you things some of the things that are flowering here at the moment
05:03today uh with some really early bloomers things that normally wouldn't uh start flowering until the
05:10summer but here's one example here this is a petunia which ordinarily you would only be putting outside
05:18right about now but these have been out for about a month because it has been so so warm and so sunny
05:23there's a lot more of them here as well there we have the first of the pansies everything you see here
05:30is growing from seed over the past few months or some of them were to started last year and then carried
05:38on here's a giant hollyhock coming up this one's massive i've never grown one that size and then amongst
05:46that are poppies as well these are oriental poppies and some five star which are a little sort of
05:57sprawling annual flower you can just see them there just try and get a photo of them as well
06:06and then more poppies here and they're all looking a bit drippy so they only bothered i think
06:13uh here we have some sweet olesium which is a great flower like just for coming and going and just
06:21it'll bloom for about a month then it'll go away and come back later in the summer
06:27and the pansies grown from seed as well and then up here we have a few of the yellow
06:34granny's bonnet these are lovely flowers as well and these are perennial so they'll come back every
06:44year and what i'll do is i'll probably put them on the ground after they start flowering
06:50free up a few pots there's a really nice one there that's loads of heads on it nice lemony yellow one
07:04down around here we have more poppies and some snapdragons ludbeckia
07:13danias more canterbury bells that's what these long spikes are and these are
07:20we should start flowering soon these are in the early early summer late spring
07:26biennial that i grew from seed last year and just left out all winter
07:30so up along here some cosmos coming along then here we have the first
07:43of the poor man's orchid schizanthus and then behind them sweet pea which will trail up here
07:50and then so there's some melison just below them and these are beautiful little flowers as you can see
08:03they have this yellow tiger striped throat and then they come in all these different bright shades
08:20so
08:24so
08:26you

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