April 2021

Frosts and freezing overnight temperatures made April ‘21 one of the coldest on record. Thankfully though, along with clear skies and welcome sunshine there were glimpses of light at the end of the long Covid tunnel as from mid May onwards it will be legal to meet up and socialise again. Suddenly tickets can be booked and gallery and restaurant openings are imminent. Diaries have started filling and at last we can begin to look and think forward again after so many months of isolation. 

This, along with more time indoors may have been what prompted me to design a collection of new weekly desk and shopping list planners. Take a look - I hope you will find one to suit your needs and should you live near enough to visit, do come to my Open Studio on 12th/13th June during the weekend of the Sudbury Trail and pick one up here! For fellow garden enthusiasts there are ‘Garden Days’ planners to help you organise your weekly gardening tasks, record your plant purchases and schedule in the less pressing tasks of normal life! ‘China Blue’ planners are the perfect gift for all collectors of blue and white transfer-printed china and ‘Zen Garden’ desk planners will help you to set your own personal goals and bring balance and harmony into your life.

There’s been one big positive to the unseasonably cold weather. It has resulted in spring flowers lasting longer than usual and, as I write, primroses are still in bloom alongside their later-flowering cowslip cousins in the wildflower ‘meadow’ area. Although once a common sight in the wild, they are becoming increasingly rare so is a joy to see them naturalising in the long grass and hybridising freely here. 

Elsewhere in the garden Exochorda x macrantha ‘The Bride’  pictured bottom right is awash with masses of pure white, sweetly scented flowers on arching branches. A large shrub when we first arrived, it’s grown to become more of a small tree. It suits our well-drained soil and forms a useful screen through the summer.

Exciting news this month is that my garden is currently featured in the May edition of ‘The English Garden’ magazine. As an enthusiastic but ‘normal’ gardener with limited free time to spend working in it I have been experiencing imposter syndrome but feel immensely flattered to see it included alongside so many other fabulous gardens. The ‘if only you’d seen it last week’ phrase so often used by gardeners is sure to be repeated again and again by me this year!