May at TwoPot Posies: Beginning Again

May felt like a month of beginning again.

After spending most of April in Germany following the loss of my mum, I returned home at the end of the month to a garden that had largely been left to its own devices. The weeds had continued to grow, the flowers had carried on without me, and the season had quietly moved forward while life elsewhere had stood still.

If I'm honest, I returned with very little motivation.

For a while, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to continue with the flowers at all. Grief has a way of making everything feel uncertain, and there were moments when giving up seemed easier than carrying on. Yet every alternative I considered felt even less appealing.

My mum's passing brought with it a sharp reminder of something we all know but often try not to think about: none of us know how much time we have left. Any one of us could be next.

Somewhere in the middle of all that uncertainty, I realised that if I was going to do this, I wanted to do it properly. I wanted to stop treating TwoPot Posies as something that might happen one day and start giving it the attention it deserves.

So I picked myself up and got back to work.

The timing wasn't ideal. I hadn't sown nearly as many seeds as I normally would by this point in the season, and with the year already well underway, I worried about having enough flowers for summer. Thankfully, fellow flower farmers stepped in with kindness and generosity, sharing seedlings and helping me fill some of the gaps. I also added a few more perennials to the garden, hoping to create a stronger foundation for the years ahead.

The weather certainly wasn't helping either.

May was cold, wet, and slow. The great burst of growth I had come to expect from previous years simply never arrived. Flowers that would normally be racing ahead seemed content to sit and wait for warmer days.

There were bright spots, though.

The peonies in the tunnel were magnificent this year, putting on the kind of display that makes all the waiting worthwhile. Tulips lingered longer than expected, while the last of the anemones and ranunculus continued to provide beautiful stems for the house and the occasional bouquet.

The forget-me-nots were perhaps my favourite surprise. Two years ago, I scattered a packet of seeds out randomly. This spring they returned in abundance, creating a soft blue carpet that seemed to appear everywhere at once. Their name felt particularly fitting this year.

Most of the month was spent weeding. After several months of focusing on other things, the garden needed attention, and I found something comforting in the simple rhythm of clearing beds and making space for new growth.

The children joined me whenever they could. And on the few dry days we were given, we worked together to build them a small playhouse from old pallets, hoping it would provide them with a place of their own while we spend long summer days in the garden ahead.

When the rain became relentless, I found myself returning to painting. It gave me a place to rest my mind for a while, a chance to focus on something beautiful and forget, if only briefly, the heaviness I was carrying.

Grief has a strange way of arriving. Sometimes it sits quietly in the background. Other times it appears without warning, in moments you least expect. I'm still learning how to navigate a world where my mum is no longer a phone call away.

But despite everything, the garden continues.

Seeds are growing. Summer flowers are slowly finding their feet. The days are stretching out. And although May wasn't the month I had planned, perhaps it was the month I needed.

Now, like everyone else in the garden, we're all waiting for a little more sunshine and looking forward to what June might bring.