June
June, and the garden started flowering by the handful. Nigella, Ammi, Roses, Delphiniums, and Orlaya- it was a banquet of delicate beauty. We finally had rain after a painfully dry spring, I caught up with the seed sowing I’d got behind on, a rush to nestle neglected seedlings into the ground, the bouquets kept flying out the door to you guys, I had my 31st birthday, and took a couple days off to eat pizza in the sunshine- all in all, a good, busy month, quieter than May, and filled with lots of beauty.
Throughout the month of June, buds open and flower one after the other, bringing the garden into full working mode. Newly planted seedlings settled themselves into the ground, the sweetpeas scrambled higher by the day, and the grasses in the wild corners skimmed past our elbows, gently catching the last rays of the day in their swaying seedheads before the sun went down.
Buckets of flowers were harvested in the evenings for your bouquets from Sunday through to Thursday each week, and the ingredients shifted from spring to summer.
The evening checks on the plot were spent marvelling at the larkspur’s blue vibrating in the low dusk light... the delphiniums too.
It was also the month of Blackout Tuesday. A lot of time was spent reflecting on how I can do better, how we can collectively, in the industry of horticulture and floriculture, do better. Reading more, listening more, writing letters to people with influence in the media and at institutions, opening discussions on systemic racism within the industry and how to take responsibility for changing it; as a member of Flowers of the Farm, I joined the Diversity Action Group initiated by Wolves Lane Flower Company as a response to the black lives matter movement. Our intentions to identify immediate and long-term actions to address this. We’re one meeting in, and every team member is getting stuck into tasks in preparation for the next.
The permanent garden beds filled out, with roses and alchimilla mollis as the stars of the month, lots of both ended up sneaking their way into some of the bouquets.
Cartwheels in blue, with delphiniums, Cerinthe, campanula, Ammi, cornflowers, nepeta, roses, sweetpeas, and pea tendrils; this is my first year of growing delphiniums and I’m hooked.
And then there’s the roses - the jewels in June’s crown; all the pinks and blushes here on the windowsill- spectablis, wedding day, Kathleen Harrop, and Desdemona.
And my favourite- Valencia- a gift from my Dad a few years ago, on paper I thought I’d hate it, it starts as a tight golden kiss before blowing up to the softest cream cake, and it’s heaven.
