Enjoy your garden’s spring glories – while keeping an eye on late summer

Plan and plant now if you want your garden to look it’s best right through August and September

I’ve always had the gift and the curse of an overactive sense of foresight. It means I’m good at planning things, but maybe quite anxiety-inducing to be around. This week’s column is very much the product of both, but I’ve been encouraged to write it by having near-identical requests from friends arrive at the same time of year, two years running: each was planning an important celebration in their garden (a wedding and a naming ceremony) in late summer, and wanted them to be in full bloom for the occasion.

As a royal parks gardener once said to me: “If it could be May for ever, I’d be happy.” It’s a glorious month: everything is soft, fresh and dewy. There’s enough anticipation in the ground and the air to inspire a daily inspection of what’s arrived overnight. The days are long, but nothing feels overbearing yet. The thud and the inevitable horticultural failures of midsummer, the dry ground and drying lawns, are on the distant horizon. Lovely May.

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