May

I thought I would start with a couple of shots of trees in the garden. The horse chestnuts shown above are looking fantastic in the garden at the moment, the nicely pruned bottom of the one of the right is kept perfectly flat by the sheep.

Below is a picture of a tree I have been meaning to photograph for years now. I think it is one of the most beautiful trees there is, it's a Norway maple. Of course the time I eventually get round to taking its portrait it is looking just green and treeish, but it changes colour so many times in the year a diary of this may as well start when it is looking its least interesting. Shame also that there is a bonfire waiting to be lit beneath it.

Now to my favourite Aqualegia 'longisima' which has just opened its first flower the others still look like comets shooting around it. Of all the hundreds of aqualegia species and hybrids it is one of the most understated and elegant. Understated that is in colour and elegant with its overly long spurs flying back behind it.

The primulas are still looking fantastic around the secret pond, such a beautiful shaded spot in the garden and a suprise to all that walk through the shrubs to emerge with the crimson carpet that they create hovering above the ground, they must have been flowering for the best part of a month already.

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Adiatum aleuticum, one of the most beautiful of all the ferns, small, delicate and a good grower to boot. The smaller varieties such as Adiatum aleuticum 'Subpumilum' with fronds that stand on 10cm long stems is even better in windy locations which all maidenhairs struggle with.

I will finish with a shot of the wonderful pattern made by the leaves of the flag iris's, as fresh and healthy looking as is possible, I meant to take an arty, abstract, close up of the patterns the stems create but instead settled for an average shot with a duck at the bottom.