Garden Day UK 2021

/ karen
My flower crown for Garden Day UK, made by Bloom.co.uk

It’s time to celebrate Garden Day UK again. Garden Day, on May 9th, is a chance to down tools and just enjoy what you’ve achieved on your plot. It’s one day when you don’t have to do anything really. Just sit in the garden, allow yourself a moment to pause and reflect.

One of the lovely features of Garden Day is the wearing of a flower crown. Take photos of your crown, and upload them to social media. Tag @GardenDayUK to share photos of your creation.

I’ve been sent this beautiful crown to wear tomorrow. It’s made from miniature cream roses and pink and blue statice. There’s some gorgeously-scented herbs, rosemary and thyme, and some grey foliage as a background foil for all the flowers.

Flower crowns are really easy to make. Take a length of florists’ wire, wrap it around your head to check the length. Add about 8” so you’ll be able to twist the ends together. Add a circle of olive foliage, or lengths of rosemary as a background. Make little bunches of flowers, any you fancy, from your own garden or from the florists. Lay each bunch along the wire and bind in with thin florists’ wire, paper-covered wire, or string. When you have covered the circle, check the crown fits, and twist the bare lengths of wire together to form the crown.

I’m looking forward to sharing my day with my Mum. Whatever the weather, we will be either sitting in the orchard, or if it’s raining, in the greenhouse.

How will you be spending Garden Day tomorrow? Do share photos of your garden on social media. It’s a good way to connect with other keen gardeners and to share ideas and gain inspiration on growing plants.

Here’s some photos of my garden today:

There’s still some Pheasant’s Eye narcissus under the cherry trees.
There’s white bluebells under the beech trees. These are albino flowers, lacking the pigment that makes the traditional flowers a rich purple/blue. They have creamy-coloured pollen and a delicious scent.
Narcissus Geranium in the cut flower patch. Lovely white flowers with a deep yellow centre. The scent is glorious. Something to look forward to each spring. Reliably comes back each year. Lasts at least a week in a vase.
Creamy white quince flowers. Chaenomeles Yukigoten. A sprawling shrub which is best trained along a sheltered wall. Flowers are sadly not frost-hardy and have to be protected with sheets of fleece. Good for pollinators. Worth the effort of protecting the blooms.
Lady’s smock, or Cardamine pratensis. In flower in the boggy area around the horseshoe pond. This year we have seen more orange tip butterflies than ever before. Lady’s smock is a food plant for the caterpillars. Also known as milk maids, moon flower and cuckoo flower. Sadly, there are no cuckoos again this year. The last time we heard them was five years ago.
Cowslips have taken over from daffodils, flowering in the leafmould under the field maple trees in the wild garden.
For a few glorious days, emerging field maple leaves glow a bright emerald green. It’s a sight to gladden the heart.

Finally, we will be accompanied by Daphne ( speckled hen) Daisy and Dot, and Merlin the cockerel, as they search for slugs in the cut flower patch. If we are very lucky, there will be eggs for tea!

Happy Garden Day everybody!

Thanks, as ever, for reading my blog. Please leave comments in the box below the hashtags, right at the bottom of this post. Or click on ‘comments’ under the headline and the box will drop down.

23 thoughts on “Garden Day UK 2021”

  1. I had to smile at the end of ‘Garden Day’ as it was one of those days when the weather was perfect for gardening and there were lots of little tasks achieved, a most full and satisfactory day, but certainly not one for sitting about and admiring it (although I did admire it as I gardened). It made me think about the timing of the ‘event’, as this is probably when the garden really does begin to put a spurt on and suddenly there is even more to do – I am sure you didn’t spend all your day lolling about admiring your garden either…! 😉

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    • Glad you had a lovely, productive day. Well, I might have done a bit of dead heading …..and there were the tomatoes to pot on. But I did stop and take in the beauty of the garden and all the emerging cow parsley and apple blossom. Let’s hope we have a really wonderful summer now, after all the difficulties of spring. Have a great gardening week, Cathy 🙂❤️ xx

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      • The surrounding fields are suddenly green. There’s a sunflower field undersown with corn and wild flowers. There were no shoots visible yesterday, and today the field has tiny shoots. Very cheerful.

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      • It’s lovely to see these small changes in the countryside – The lambs in a field near us are definitely very much bigger than a week ago, and it’s hard to beleive that there are ears on the spring sown barley already!

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  3. The divine, wonderful, enchanting wreath for May 9, UK Garden Day, of cream miniature roses, pink and blue statice, rosemary and thyme: I love it. I wish you and your dear Mother have a great time together on Garden Day with your flower crowns on. Karen, thank you very much for teaching us how to make a flower crown: It’s easy! Karen the photos of your garden and its flowers are all divine and magnificent: I love them all. Pheasant’s Eye daffodils, Snowdrops, Geranium Narcissus, Creamy White Quince blossoms, Lady’s Robe – I love them and I love them, they are my favorites. I’m very sorry that there are no cuckoos. Daphne, Daisy, Doty and Merlin are gorgeous in the cut flower patch – I love them. They sure lay eggs before tea time! Lots of love to them and the Three Musketeers! Health, encouragement, strength, hope, positive thinking and a lot of love for your whole family, Mr B and for you. Take good care of yourself and be very careful with the Covid, do not rush and keep the security measures and the mask. Happy Garden Day !!! 🌸🌼 Strong hugs. Much love and I wish you the best. Very affectionate greetings from Margarita xxx 😀😘🌞💚🌱🌼🌼🌼

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    • Thank you very much Margarita. We had a lovely day. The hens have started laying eggs. It’s so funny to watch. All the girls go into the hen house to accompany the one laying the egg- as if to give encouragement and support. Merlin stands guard at the door do they are not disturbed and then crows when they emerge. They are a constant source of delight and amazement to us. Thank you for your very kind words, and for reading the blog. It’s always appreciated. Lots of love and affectionate greetings from us all. 😃❤️🌸🌷🌱 xxx

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    • Thank you Cathy. The bluebells have lasted a long time this year due to the icy cold weather. We now have downpours daily. April showers in May! Hope you are having a good week. I’m having my 2nd vaccine tomorrow. Fingers crossed for no reaction this time! Xx

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    • Thank you Noelle. They are so entertaining. They have just started to lay eggs. When one goes in the nest box, the other two hens go in to accompany her, snd the cockerel guards the doorway and makes encouraging sounds. The eggs are the size of a thimble to start with. So lovely to have their company in the garden. Enjoy your Sunday

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  7. Such a lovely floral crown… looks like it will dry well for hanging, too.
    Like Tony wrote, tomorrow is Mother’s Day here in the US. I have friends coming to tour the garden, so it’ll be a ‘garden day’ of sorts. 🙂

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    • Thanks for reading the blog, Tony. I hadn’t heard of Garden Day until a few years back. I’ve never had time to join in before. Hope you had a good weekend. All the best. Karen

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  9. What a brilliant idea Karen! I think that any flowers in my garden will be too saturated for me to want to adorn my head with. I’ve got some gentle greenhouse activities to get on with tomorrow. I hope that you enjoy your day sharing your garden with your mum and will keep fingers crossed for you that the wet stuff holds off 😄

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    • Thank you Anna. The weather cleared up right at the end of the day. Still, we must not complain. We didn’t have any rain at all in April. Seems we are getting April showers in May! 🙂

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