Gardening Scotland starts tomorrow

This year's Gardening Scotland exhibition starts tomorrow (Friday 29 May) and goes on till Sunday 31st May at Royal Highland Showground, Ingliston, Edinburgh.

It's Scotland's leading gardening show and a great mix of plants, floral, food and garden furniture Lets hope it will be buzzing again this year. For more information check out the Gardening Scotland website.

I'll be there on Sunday and heading straight for my favourite garden furniture designer, Fusion Metalwork who'll be exhibiting some fantastic new designs. I'm also looking forward to seeing what new plants are on display this year (and perhaps coming home with a few!)

Fingers crossed the weather stays sunny.

Peonies and herb tarts - summer is here!

Today was just glorious. An impromptu alfresco lunch with friends and family perfectly captured the reason everyone should have a garden - so they can sit in the sun, surrounded by nature and friends with food made fresh from homegrown ingredients.

More on that soon, but first. The peonies! They have finally started to open and the large deep crimson cup shaped flowers filled with tightly packed ruffles look fantastic. There’s just three open so far and lots of bulging round buds waiting their turn.

Next to the peonies the first oriental papaver has opened. It’s plum petals are so thin and papery they are almost translucent. With black spots like thumb prints they circle the tight black centre packed with loops of stamen. The rest of the large hairy poppy buds are still tightly closed.

It’s been a long week of waiting for the big buds to open. The weather has been so mixed, and yesterday seemed more changeable than most going from sun to blustery winds to lashing rain and back again. But today the sun shone.

Mr & Mrs Great Tit are still going in and out of their eaves nest constantly while other birds hop around the garden. The orange tip butterflies are still flitting around.
















The aqualegia and cranesbill geranium are in full bloom all and the ferns are all unfurling new stems.

The purple and white alliums are a spectacular mass of tiny flowers in a perfect sphere.

The oregano, thyme and rosemary are all growing madly. With lots of delicate new shoots it’s the ideal time to make a lovely herb tart.

Since cooking is my other creative passion, here’s the recipe for the herb tart I rustled up for lunch.

I hope it encourages you to make the most of the new herbs.

Brie & Tomato Summer Herb Tart

1. Roll out a rectangle of puff pastry, place it on a floured baking tray and lightly score round the pastry about 2-3cm in from the edge with a sharp knife. Make sure no ingredients go onto the border.




2. Next go and pick a selection of rosemary tips, oregano, thyme, chives etc. and chop them finely.




3. In a small food processor, add 3 cloves of garlic, some fresh black pepper, a little extra virgin olive oil and 6 slices of parma ham. Blitz and sprinkle the ham over the pastry.




4. Next cut in half about 15 baby plum tomatoes, chop a few soft sundried tomatoes and sprinkle them over the pastry. Sprinkle the tomatoes with half the chopped herbs.




5. Now take a wedge of brie and chop it into thick slices about 2cm wide and place them on the tomatoes.




6. Grind some salt and pepper over the tart and sprinkle on the remaining herbs.




7. Lightly brush the outside border of the pastry with milk and pop the tart in a 190 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.




8. When its golden brown and bubbling take it out and let it cool for 5 minutes before covering it with freshly picked rocket and baby salad leaves. Eat & enjoy.

Great Expectations

16/17 May: The theme for this week is great expectations. The week started well with some lovely weather and then it turned to rain and strong winds. Even the ducks have gone into hiding!

Everything, including me, has great hopes of the summer to come. So many large buds are sitting tentatively and teasingly waiting for their moment in the sun. Peonies, poppies, alliums, iris are all poised to burst out. But, despite looking so promising, very few flowers have opened this week.

The deep pink magnolia, cherry armagowa and lilac all look a little weather beaten, even though they are in full flower and the gusty winds have finished off the last of the tulips.

Over the weekend, in between showers, the garden was quickly full of butterflies, bees and birds all looking for something to eat before the rain started again. More pairs of orange tipped butterflies could be see flitting very quickly from plant to plant. I spotted this pair of mating dragonflies on the wood anemones.

Mr & Mrs Great Tit have been flitting in and out of their nest in the eaves constantly this week with mouths full of food. It’s been like a baton race. All of the birds seem to be enjoying the lighter nights with full evening chorus cracking off about 8.30pm every evening as the heron does its nightly fly round. The water in the river is too high and fast for the ducks this week so hopefully they’ll be back next week.

The fruit and veg are doing ok though. The extra water doesn’t seem to be going amiss there. The peas and potatoes are shooting up and the strawberries are in flower already. I even managed yesterday to harvest enough salad leaves for lunch. It's not all bad even on a wet day!

Great for the ducks!

Well, this week has been largely weather for the ducks alternating with gusty winds. Not a good week for gardening. Thankfully there was a short burst of good weather today (Sunday) so we could get out and do some power weeding.

Despite the weather, the birds were definitely back in fuller voice today. When the rain forced us to take a break from weeding a host of thrush, robins, blackbirds and tits descended with great chirping to dig for worms. Mr & Mrs Great Tit that are nesting in the eaves were going in and out constantly this afternoon so lets hope that means the chicks have hatched.

With all the rain, the river is high and a thick chocolatey colour - and the ducks are loving it. It was lovely this morning to watch the pair of mallards waddle up the bank and then swim back and forward across the little rocky rapids just upstream from our garden. After they’d finished playing Mr Mallard stood guard as Mrs Mallard fed. Hopefully we’ll have some ducklings again soon. As I watched the ducks I also spotted a super speedy black and white stealth bird that whizzed down the river twice. No chance of getting a photo but I think it was a Martin.

After this week’s poor weather many of the big buds are still tightly closed. The lilac has started to open and is attracting bees and butterflies. There were two types of butterflies around this morning.

One, a cabbage white (white with fine grey lines)

the other an Orange Tip butterfly (white with vivid orange wing tips).

One of the magnolia buds has decided to brave it and open along with a few of the rhododendron heads but the poppies and peonies remain tightly closed.

Buds have appeared on the claret thistle while the first flowers are out on the purple cranesbill geranium, a ruby astrantia and the pink/cream aqualegias.

The summer bulbs and tubers are also starting to make an appearance this week. A few alliums have started to open their papery outer covering. Whilst others like allium moly and the chives are covered in tight little heads. The iris are also forming new tightly bound purple heads.

When rain forced the first weeding break, I watched from the back door as the tiny droplets formed on the lupin leaves in the pot I’d added to the deck last week.

Mesmerised I was driven to grab my camera and get out to photograph it (despite the rain). Realising how beautiful the glistening crystal droplets looked I then continued round the garden to create a collection of photos showing the garden after rain.

the rain clings to some, like the pasque teasels, and just drips off others like the acer

Not even the rain can dull the striking colour of the tulips

The wonderfully curious Pasque flower

The pasque flower is one of the most fabulously curious plants I have. It earns that title over a relatively short life but from the moment it pokes its hairy alien-looking head out of the ground to the beautiful nodding bell shaped flowers with vibrant yellow crowns to the iridescent spiky teasels after the flowers have gone - it 's continually engaging and intriguing.

Here are some photos of the pasque flowers in my garden this year to show you what I mean.

They first made an appearance in mid March - like little hairy aliens crawling out the old leaves that still litter the ground

But less than two weeks later the first elegant bell shaped flowers have already appeared on finely dessicated leaves covered in wispy fine hairs.

During April they continue to flower

And by May the flowers are passing to reveal wonderful softly spiky teasle heads

Pasque flowers go by many names (prairie crocus, wind flower, Easter Flower and meadow anemone are a few of the more common). It's called the Pasque flower because it flowers around Easter (passover). It's proper name is Pulsatilla and its one of the first perennials to flower every spring. It's highly toxic but used dried and in dilution in many homeopathic treatments.

There are a number of wildlife reserves and places of special scientific interest around the country that have rare pasque flower meadows. You can fine one near you on the Natural England website

or the Scottish Natural Heritage website.

The big buds are getting ready to burst

2/3 May: Although the weather has been mixed during this week it’s another lovely sunny weekend. As I sit on the deck writing I’m covered in a “snow” shower of copper husks mixed with a few white cherry petals. Most of the trees around me are now sporting a full set of new green leaves and the husks that protected the leaves are being brushed off in the breeze.

It’s a bank holiday weekend and I’m wondering if everything has gone on holiday. The usual bird acrobatics and daytime chorus are no-where to be seen. A lone cheeky thrush bounced around the garden rustling through leaves and lawn while a heron sits on a high branch on the bank watching carefully before taking off with a series of loud squwaks. A few pink breasted wood pigeons fly past before settling in the trees. In the distance I can hear the odd crow and pheasant calling. But that’s about it.

I did spot one welcome newcomer during the week, a fork tailed swallow. The messenger for summer quickly flitted around above the house and then was off again. I’m sure I’ll see more of them soon. Another fast flitting flyer was out in the evenings this week - the tiny bats that live here could be seen ducking and diving round each other at high speed. It’s amazing to watch.

Flowering just now
Around the garden, the flurry of spring activity has slowed down too as the plants get ready for the next big burst.The pasque flowers have faded and left some fantastic teasles. The lily flowering tulips still look stunning but some of the earlier virdiflora are starting to fade.

The second cherry, a thin upright armagowa, now drips with lush light pink blossom. It’s a great shape, like a exclamation mark in the bend in the path.

The early clematis have also started to bloom – beatutiful white luxurious flowers on the evergreen clematis cling to the shed while the pinkish Montana runs along the fence.

I’ve been to the garden centre today to get some more potting compost. As the usually do, a few plants happened to jump into the trolley while I was there. I’ve now planted up a selection of summer pots. Two big blue pots on the deck now have orange geum and blue lupins in and three octagonal pots by the door have lovely lilac and white brachycome and silver cineraria in. I love the delicate daisy shapes of the brachycome and it’s one of the few annuals I always plant.

Coming soon: The big buds

Meanwhile the next wave of new flowers are silently getting ready. The big buds are about to come out! The upright compact buds of the red rhododendron are standing to attention.

Under the lime popular the peonies are sporting loads of large tight balls edged with a deep red next to the large hairy poppy heads.

Clusters of tiny, tight new buds are sprouting on the lilac bush and dark pink horns are standing proud on the magnolia tree. I can't wait!

Pea tendrils and blueberries

2/3 May: The peas are absolute stars. They already have tiny tendrils looking to wind their way round some thin sticks. Although they’ve got a cane wigwam to grow up when they get bigger, to get them started, I’ve given them some lovely glittery gold twigs that I had left over from a floral display.

The potatoes have also started to sprout, with each displaying two or three small leaves. The radishes are well underway, with carrot and beetroot seedlings delicately following. The fruit bushes are also doing well with the fig and gooseberry sporting some new leaves and the blueberry looking like it might even have some flower heads forming.

The veg seeds I planted in mid April are also sprouting. Outside the pots of kale, rocket and salad leaves all have little seedlings, while inside the capsicum and chillies have two little leaves each.

I’ve also bought some lovely tomato plants from a local organic farm. With all the wet weather last year I lost all of the three types of tomatoes I’d grown from seed before they fruited so this year I’ve cut back and just bought four plants; two gardeners delight and two golden queen. They are now planted in tall tomato pots by the south wall of the house so lets hope the weather is good this year.