GARDENS
GARDE N How does your GR O W?
ANNA TAYLOR, OWNER OF ANNA’S FLOWER FARM IN AUDLEY END, SHARES WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE GARDEN THIS MONTH
M aia, the Greek goddess of fertility, land and growth, seems to have inspired the name for the month of May, which certainly feels appropriate. The Romans celebrated the beginning of May with the festival of Floralia to celebrate the Roman goddess of flowers, Flora. It was marked by dancing, gathering of flowers and wearing bright clothes, just like more modern May Day celebrations and maypole dancing. And with the garden transforming this month, voluptuous and rich with the trees and hedges turning verdant green, I think there is much to celebrate. Flowers race ahead in dry, warm weather or leaves are lush and full if it’s wet. We mark May Day by continuing the ancient tradition of leaving anonymous May Baskets of flowers on our neighbours’ doorsteps, celebrating the day – and marking the beginning of summer. We are cutting the tulips, ranunculus, anemones and other spring bulbs. The first big flush of flowers brings full busy days for us again, cutting and conditioning, weeding as the soil has warmed up and still sowing new seeds for later in the summer, together with hardening off seedlings to plant out. It can still freeze even after dry, warm days, so protect your young plants. May feels pivotal in the gardening year – and we will reap the rewards across the summer for all the work we have done thus far. By the end of the month, we are sowing biennials, in preparation for next spring’s flowers – a whole year ahead! They fill a flower gap in May between the spring flush and the first summer annuals and perennials, so you can feel really pleased with yourself if you manage to squeeze those in. Think wallflowers, silvery pods of honesty, sweet rocket and foxgloves. They are some of the loveliest spring flowers. After carefully nurturing seedlings, the last thing you want to do is plant them out and have them destroyed by slugs. There is no easy fix, so we have several weapons
in our arsenal. Unless we have a terrible attack, we avoid slug pellets, as they affect the soil composition with iron phosphates. We first make sure our soil is well prepared, so the plants grow strong and can sustain some damage, but by far the best way to deal with slugs in our experience is to catch them! Night-time raids with a torch are highly successful, as are jam jars of beer sunk into the soil next to vulnerable plants. Slugs are drawn to the beer, slip in and drown. It’s horrid, but even with a pond of frogs, chickens and wild birds, we always have slugs attracted to our rich soil and tasty young plants. We also surround some precious plants with plastic bottle rings, and once they have established over the next few weeks, their leaves are tougher and unbothered by slugs. It sounds like lots of effort, but well worth it. May is a sneak preview of the summer: warmer, bright, long days. The final push of sowing, tending and planting before the big performance of flower beds and borders. l
THIS MONTH Celebrate Garden Day at the Anna’s Flower Farm plots on Sunday 12 May with tours, tea and cake – and you can book to make a flower crown on the day, too. See the website for more details.
annasflowerfarm.com
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