Oh May! Such a fabulous month in the garden. Blossom dripping off trees, new buds emerging in the beds, bees drowsily buzzing. May is probably my favourite month, horticulturally. Summer is almost upon us, but the greens are still fresh and green and the dew glistens on the grass in the mornings.

In the last month, the back garden has really been taken over by the chickens and the kids. We bought two news chooks to add to the flock, which was brilliant but also necessitated buying a spare coop in case they all decided to peck each other to death. Luckily, they didn’t, but the empty coop now sits squeezed between the vegetable beds and the original chicken run and its orange-stained wooden frame is in direct line of sight at almost every point in the garden. At the end of April, the littlest had his second birthday and was the happy recipient of a brand new, bright blue plastic slide, that takes up almost all of our tiny lawn space. But, away from the blue plastic and orangina wood, the fruit trees are all in blossom and the flower beds are going great guns, with all our new plants growing well, if a little surrounded by weeds at the moment….

In the evening, the sinking sun sets right behind the fabulous acer and its leaves glow bright bronze. It’s one of my favourite sights at this time of year (and one of the few plants we kept from the previous owners…) And I’m delighted with my new bright lime green eupborbia, which is just as stunning as I’d hoped it might be. I had meant to plant some ruby red aquilegias around it, but instead it seems to be surrounded by weeds at the moment. Ah well.

In our front garden, the morello cherry tree has been in spectacular bloom, the rock roses covered in white flowers and the Sicilan honey garlic (Nectaroscordum siculum) just starting to peep out above the rest. I can see the first long shoot of the perennial sweet pea starting to make its way up the obelisk, promising a profusion of bright pink blooms later in the year.

Yes, life in sweet in May – the only obstacle to my garden utopia that we’re about to go on holiday to Sicily for a couple of weeks and I’ve not got anybody lined up to do any watering in case of no rain here. Still, the weeds, at least will survive our absence, I’m sure.