May 2025 began with a continuation of the glorious weather we’d enjoyed for much of March and April.

Plenty of blue skies, and the garden and landscape looking incredibly lush with new foliage and blossom everywhere.

This short video captures the sights and sounds of crabapple blossom in the Malus copse at the beginning of the month, as the last daffodil varieties bloomed.

Looking back at previous weather records for April and March helps to explain why the garden looks as it does this May – consistently very sunny, the lack of extreme hot or cold spells, and sufficient groundwater from a wet winter and a week’s spell of rain in mid-April to allow growth to be superb.

The very warm weather in the last couple of days of April soon abated to something more tolerable in the upper teens.

We had our annual delivery of wood pellets during this dry spell, and could pace ourselves stacking them away. We aim to have stocks sufficient for the following winter stored well before rain or cold arrive.

Work continued with setting out cardboard and rotted down mulch from last year’s hay and sheep bedding, to create around 50 more planting patches for daffodils to expand the daffodil display in the Malus copse in future years. This is the easy bit. Lifting and planting the bulbs less so! Even as the last, late, daffodils add pops of white or colour around the garden

Despite many rhododendrons having a less floriferous year than in 2024, there were still enough flowers for an impactful display, and the various Clematis montana have never looked as good. Or indeed the apple and other Malus blossom. The somewhat cramped snowdrop tree, Halesia carolina, always looks beautiful at this time of the year too.

The month continued in the same vein with a long pre-booked group of Canadian ladies arriving as Gelli was looking absolutely gorgeous and basking in warm sunshine.

The Clematis montana continued to persist for weeks with light winds and no rain to dislodge petals.

I made this YouTube to capture the two hours of the day they spent with us, including many early and late scenes which they would have missed.

We had to wait until Monday May12th before the first rain fell in the month (just 0.3mm). Sunshine immediately returned, and we were worried about how poor the grass growth was in the hay meadows for this time of year. Even if the Bird’s-foot trefoil was enjoying all the sunshine, and the Welsh poppies in both their colour variations have looked stunning around the garden.

An early Painted Lady butterfly homed in on the thrift flowers outside the front door, where I also spotted a wandering hedgehog, at 5.45 am one morning, which hid in the long border before I could photograph it.

We then enjoyed a rare week on the coast in Pembrokeshire with glorious blue skies and no rain either there or at home until our return, when finally on the evening of 24th, a landscape and garden desperate for more moisture was blessed with 10 mm falling. The weather had, for now, broken just in the nick of time to avert major plant fatalities.

Fortunately, another of our planned NGS open weekends managed to escape this, and the visitors enjoyed a less tired looking garden than would have been the case without this rain. And I was able to pick a different range of flowers to adorn the various table bowls, for their visit.

By now, rambling roses had begun to open to pick up the baton from the Clematis montana, and display their flowers high up into the surrounding trees. The Nectaroscordum siculum are thriving in the terrace garden, unlike most of the other alliums which have largely disappeared after last year’s record rain. 

One of the first jobs I did after returning from a week away, and with the weather due to change was collect all the ripe Narcissus seedpods which had already matured and were splitting, beginning with the very early forms and the most fecund N. pseudonarcissus forms (typically 50 seeds per pod this year, after an exceptional pollination season). The Daphne bholua fruit are also just ripening, so they need daily walk arounds to find and pick them (all in the fourth week of May for the record).

In the end, 140 gm equating to about 24,000 seeds from the N. pseudonarcissus hybrid forms! A bumper harvest.

May ended with a few very welcome days of light rain. Just enough to avert real water worries for now, but not enough to replenish ground water levels properly, or raise the stream.

Hay meadow growth was really slow, and the orchids, whilst once again increasing in number in both meadows, were very short, compared to their enormous height in the wet spring of 2024.

It amazes me that we still have so many small trout/sea trout fish of more than one generation, holing up in the larger pools on our section of the stream.

Rainfall for the month was just 46.85 mm, with 22 dry days. And the PV reading of 572 KWH was another very high one in the series I’ve now kept for 13 years Maximum and minimum readings are highlighted:

2013: 110 mm, 17 dry days, no frosts, PV N/A

2014: 140 mm, 10 dry days, no frosts PV 406 KWH

2015: 142 mm, 10 dry days, no frosts PV 441 KWH

2016: 114 mm, 17 dry days, no frosts PV 492 KWH

2017: 112 mm, 16 dry days, no frosts PV 478 KWH

2018: 58 mm, 19 dry days no frosts  PV 512 KWH

2019: 51 mm, 20 dry days no frosts  PV 501 KWH

2020: 23 mm, 25 dry days, no frosts  PV 609 KWH

2021: 291mm, 6 dry days, no frosts,  PV 440 KWH

2022: 71 mm, 10 dry days, no frosts PV 436 KWH

2023: 28 mm, 24 dry days, no frosts PV 577 KWH

2024: 81 mm, 16 dry days, no frosts PV 400 KWH

2025: 46.85mm, 22 dry days, no frosts 572 KWH