I have to report a disaster. There they were... little pink buds all along the stems of my, what must be by now, 10-year-old Cercis ‘Forest Pansy’. This small tree has glorious, large heart-shaped purple leaves all through summer but you have to wait for it to decide to flower. And wait, I did. Until, at last, there they were... oh joy! But it was not to be... the winds came along and whipped the whole lot off before they could even get going... misery.

No doubt some of you can commiserate with me, having had the same thing happen, albeit with different trees and different flowers. So much for May, eh? Things have been growing well but the winds and the occasional downpours, combined with the odd and unexpected cold nights have checked a lot of things. I am only just putting out my tomatoes and the half-hardy annuals that I grew from seed. The hardy ones have been fine – flowering, in fact – but the half-hardies will have to wait their turn.

And talking of disasters, there’s another one looming that, if you are an aquilegia grower, you need to know about. A horrible fungal pathogen in the shape of a form of downy mildew, is making its presence known.

You may remember that downy mildew was responsible a few years’ back for the decimation of Busy Lizzies. Well this one is having ago at the Granny’s Bonnets. I shall describe the symptoms so you can keep an eye out: the leaves are held more erect than normal with longer leaf stems to leaf surface area; foliage often seems to be whiter than normal. Leaf edges may curl or leaves crumble away leaving the main veins. Later in the season, leaves may look mottled with yellow angular patches on them. There is no cure available and if you suspect that you have infected plants, take the whole lot out and dispose by burning or adding to green waste bins. Don’t put them on your compost heap whatever you do. Fortunately, aquilegias are easy to grow from seed so you can start afresh, but if you suspect that you had infected plants, steer clear of growing any at all for a few years as the spores will still be in the soil.

Now that I’ve depressed you, let’s cheer you up. Clematis montana will be finishing flowering. As a rule, it shouldn’t need any regular pruning so just trim it all back to its allotted space. The same goes for the other earlies as in the alpina and macropetala types.

Sweet peas are putting on new growth and so will need training in if you have not erected some sort of mesh system. I grow mine up metal spirals around which I have threaded wire for them to hang on to. This year I have gone for Blue Ballerina, Chatsworth and a dark maroon called Lovejoy. Whatever you are growing, remember to snip off some of the tendrils as they grow so that they don’t grasp around stems, rendering them useless for cutting; leave some on as they are the means of the plants climbing.

My verbena hastata plugs which survived the winter under the canopy have been planted into a tall, blue pot in decent compost with some guts to it and a handful of slow-release fertilizer. If you haven’t seen this type of verbena before, look out for it – it’s a cracker.