Is it just me or is the hawthorn blossom pretty bonkers this year? Usually there’s a seasonal sprinkle of creamy whites in the hedgerows, but this year she’s gone mad with a blousy riot of fluffy petticoats all over the South Downs! And I love that soft grassyflower scent. In fact, I love sniffing plants in the sunshine altogether.

One of my favourite Summer Sniffs is Nemesia ‘Wisley Vanilla’ and although it always seems to be the most expensive variety, I can rarely resist filling my kitchen window boxes with those delicate bloomers so I can enjoy their scent while I’m cooking. And over the last few years I’ve planted lilac trees in my garden, an old-fashioned climbing rose at the back and summer flowering Jasmine to scramble up a south facing wall.  But whether it’s my lazy watering, enthusiastic pruning or the wrong type of fertiliser, I’ve had disappointingly few blooms. My plans for a super fragrant summer garden have been thwarted, and each year when the days get longer my hopes fade further.

But then after a bit of reading I realised I’d been trying hard in all the wrong places. Apparently, you need to neglect your lilacs, prune 'n feed your roses at the right time and the jasmine flowers best when it reaches the top of the wall.

So this year it’s finally paid off! The white rose smells absolutely DIVINE but with record growth her gangly flowering shoots have bent double, swinging thorny fronds at eye level like a herd of angry triffids, rendering the whole back of the garden impassable. The lilac’s blooms are so heavy and pendulous, my small bush has collapsed across the path. And the spectacular summer flowering jasmine having reached the top of the wall and then some, has broken free of its moorings entirely, landing the most potentially fragrant parts in the fishpond.

The secateurs are out and I am reminded to be careful what I wish for…

But some hopes are without such dire consequences… especially if one of your dreams is to acquire an affordable piece of original work by yours truly.  

My Big Show this year in November at Panter and Hall, London is the next opportunity if you wish to BUY original work, but if you’d like to get something FREE we have lots of giveaways on Facebook, Instagram on some free drawings with orders on my website.

Ok now I REAALLY feel like I’ve talked your heads off. I’m sorry about that. I’m like one of those people you meet at a party who keeps talking at you even though you’re not listening, you know the ones…

So I’ll leave you in peace for the now. And I’ll be back in a few months with news of my trip to Cornwall and our Grand Day Out in Big London!

Big love to you all,

Sam x