GINA PARKINSON reports on what's flowering in...

Our garden is full of colour and with the recent rain plants have shaken off the dust and spread themselves into all the available space.

Work we are having done on the house has added scaffolding, wood, buckets and bricks to the garden equation and the lawn has given up. But the fears I had that the plants would follow suit have so far proved unfounded and they have carried on growing and mostly look as they should at the beginning of May.

Clematis montana is in full flower with a pale pink variety climbing through Hydrangea petiolaris, while a white-flowered one scrambles through a holly tree on the opposite side of the garden.

Clematis montana is a large species and not really recommended for a small garden so we will have to keep an eye on its activities over the next few years and cut it back every now and again. A third variety of this species, Clematis montana 'Rubens', is growing through Jasminum officinale and it is my favourite with dark bronzy red leaves and deep pink flowers. It seems slower growing here than the other two.

In one bed, a clump of bluebells are flowering at the feet of Euphorbia mellifera and nearby the red flowers of E.griffithii 'Fireglow' echo the colours in E.martinii and Geum rivale 'Leonard's Variety'.

This geum, which blooms on and off from May to October, is an attractive plant with coppery-pink flowers above a neat clump of fresh green leaves. It is long lived but requires a damp position - ideal for a bog garden, otherwise it will need regular and copious watering during even a short lived dry spell.

Euphorbia mellifera has never flowered in our garden but it looks exotic with tall stems carrying long, quite pale leaves. It is in a shady spot which probably accounts for the lack of flowers but I am told they smell of honey when they appear.

Updated: 08:56 Saturday, May 03, 2003