It's been a challenging few weeks at Gasper Cottage, with temperatures soaring to 36°C and a complete absence of rainfall pushing the garden to the limits of what it can withstand. Our free-draining, sandy soil is naturally prone to drying out, and while the tonnes of mulch we apply each year help to retain moisture, it can only do so much in the face of such prolonged and extreme conditions. The arrival of easterly winds last week was bittersweet. For us, it made working out

At our recent open day (thank you to everyone who came!), the most commented on part of the garden was without doubt the strip of annual meadow. Intensely colourful, with an inviting grass path meandering through the middle, its bucolic good looks seem to stir a slightly different set of emotions from the rest of the garden. Unlike a perennial meadow, which includes several grass species, takes years to mature, and offers a more muted, softer colour palette, an annual meadow

If March sees the garden crouched in the starting blocks, and April with its bottom high in the air, then May is the 'GO!' moment – that explosive surge when everything bursts fully into action. In the early part of the month, we enjoyed the ever-reassuring sight of perennials pushing up strong new growth with gusto. Not yet troubled by pests or weather – nor tall enough to flop over – there's something extremely pleasing about the garden in this 'virgin' state. It's when the

Camassia quamash Back in autumn 2021, we planted a small number of Camassia quamash bulbs in the meadow to test how they would cope in our light, well-draining conditions. Conventional wisdom has long held that Camassia belongs in damp meadows, yet we were encouraged by a number of reports suggesting it may be more adaptable and tolerant of drier soils than previously thought. And after all, the soil here generally only becomes very dry in mid to late summer, when the bulbs a

What a month! From glorious blue skies to sudden hailstorms, with the odd gale and drenching downpour thrown in for good measure, March has certainly kept us on our toes. The only weather we've really been lacking is frost – with just one or two mornings greeting us with a dusting of white. The unusually mild temperatures mean we're seeing plants coming into bloom a good month or so earlier than you might expect – we've even spotted bluebells out in the lane. Add to that the