A return to the garden after a few days away can resemble the Peekaboo game we play with our grandson. In our short absence some plants seemed to have simply leapt out of the ground and into flower. This is a regular experience so that the return to home and garden will always have a touch of anticipation and excitement attached to it.
There will, of course, the few negative impressions on the scout of the garden – the weeds never stop germinating and growing and this year they seem to have been especially prolific and, of course, the grass doesn’t stop growing just because the gardener takes a holiday. However, these are the constant and regular aspects of any garden and have to be taken as a given and simply accepted. However, it is better to focus on the positive and enjoy the surprises such occasion present to us.
Even before reaching our entrance I could see that the primulas, which have self-seeded along the roadside verge outside our garden, had come into full flower and that an unusual seedling had arisen. We had one very much the same last year which we had moved into the garden so as to keep a better eye on it. These are Primula pulverulenta which are quite like the more common Primula japonica except that the stems are a silvery grey.
We have a small patch of Primula japonica ‘Apple Blossom’ in the garden which we keep separate from the other primulas to keep them true to name and we remove the seedpods each year so they don’t produce any seedlings – increase is by division only.
Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ is hitting full flower, a bulb which has increased in great numbers over the year and looks its best when the Laburnum in the back ground comes into flower. At present it is only beginning to show colour so we must wait another week to see the combination. Elsewhere, Allium ‘Goliath’ a large white-flowered variety has come into bloom. It is still in small numbers but they are increasing and promise to produce a good effect in a few years.
The Chatham Island Forget-me-not is putting on a great show. I suppose because it escaped the hardships of this winter and enjoyed the wet spring. Regularly it is damaged over winter and doesn’t recover sufficiently to put on a good display, which can be disappointing. However, this year it is looking good and we can enjoy it.
The absence of a few days gives us a sense of visiting our own garden, if only for a few moments until we are reacquainted with it again – “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”, I suppose!
Paddy Tobin, An Irish Gardener 
What a lovely journal and one with which we can all to some degree or another identify. My moment was a new rhodo which turned out a magnificent apple blossom pink. Many thanks for sharing.
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There’s always a great sense of anticipation on returning home after a few days away – what has changed? What has grown? etc etc.
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Paddy, your garden is looking beautiful.Apart from the lovely primulas, The purple allium looks wonderful with the birch trunk.I have planted and lost two Chatham Is. forget-me-nots (in what is essentially their home territory)….but shall try another spot. Yours is very healthy.
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We grew the Chatham Island Forget-me-not from seed many years ago and it has don well since. Mary swears on an annual mulch with seaweed. I don’t believe in this but the plant’s performance contradicts me.
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The seaweed treatment is widely advocated here in NZ too….supposed to mimic conditions where it grows naturally. Mary is right!
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I believe that Mary is always right!
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Garden looks wonderful especially the Chatham Island Forget me nots. I have lost so many of these due to cold weather. They grow like weeds at the Eden Project.
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They can be a bit of a hit and miss, it seems.
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