May, the very edge of summer, tugging at its hem, spring gradually slipping away. A month of roses and foxgloves, peonies and sweet rocket, the air full of sweetness and the low hum of foraging bees. The frogs have been striking up a chorus every evening, their croaking underpinned on warmer nights by the thrum of the field crickets and grasshoppers, strings to the base, the nightingales still singing out the loudest, the rich trilling whistles rising above everyone else.

This May though has been a month of two halves, the garden not quite sure what to do with itself. After the warm, dry days of April, the early month brought us some much-needed rain, the dry earth soaking up the storms with a sigh of relief. But then it didn’t stop, falling for days on end from dull, grey skies, the nights getting colder and colder. I watched for frosts, but thankfully none came.

The flowers, bought on by the warm spring suddenly stood still, stiff in the cold and the wet, heads heavy and sad. The outer petals of the roses clung damply around unfurling buds, making them ball and brown before the ruffles could open out, the ranunculus were one moment too hot and then too cold, the sweet peas waited, refusing to grow onwards and upwards until the sun came back.

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April is bright and green, all cool mornings and warm afternoons, it’s loud and vibrant, the energy of each day infectious. I’ve felt myself pulled up and out every morning, called into the garden in the early hours by the birds, their chorus starting as the very first grey light steals through the trees. The Robins, Blackbirds and Blue Tits of the winter have been joined by the Chiffchaffs, Chaffinches, Wrens and Blackcaps, each adding their voice to the choir that swells day-by-day The Song Thrush has a rival in the Nightingale, who gets up early and goes to bed late to make sure he takes centre stage. Late in the month the Cuckoo starts to call, though I don’t hear him that often, he must be back and forth, searching for a mate and someone else’s nest for them to lay their eggs in.

As the sun rises the colours intensify, sometimes the green is so bright, so pure, that my eyes blink themselves closed against the onslaught of colour. The leaves uncurled in days, the stark branches of the trees cloaked under velvety leaves, each one soft and new. The wind when it comes likes to rumple them, twisting and turning through the branches and making the leaves shiver, the branches bend, it adds a percussive shush to the rhythm of the day, a sound that’s been missing all winter long.

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March is bright, first the yellows of the celandines, cowslips and daffodils and then the gradual greening. The colour seems to seep slowly back into the garden day-by-day, the browns and greys of winter fading out as the energy of spring starts to build. The air is sweet too, with a softness that comes only in springtime. The metallic spike of winter blown away, though not too far, staying close enough to add a snap to the early mornings; a warning not to get too carried away.

In the hedgerows the birds are busy, singing their way through the day, calling and shouting to one another, claiming territory, searching for someone to share it with. I wonder what they look for in a home? If they consider building their nests in the clouds of blackthorn blossom that are bursting at every field edge, knowing that between the pale beauty of the flowers the spiteful thorny stems might keep them safe?

As the blackthorn blossom starts to go over the wild cherry blossom bursts out, its sweet cherry scent calling to the bees, who are awake and hungry now, searching among the early flowers for nectar. The hawthorn and the apple blossom will come next, their buds already forming, my two favourites ready to flower together.

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February hangs heavy, it clings damply to my boots as I trudge through the mud that seems to be everywhere and I’m almost grateful for the many puddles to wash them off in. The rain is relentless, it swallows us, we spend entire days draped in clouds, the rain falling so hard and so fast that the garden is hidden behind a froth of grey. I watch as the puddles merge into lakes and the earth turns boggy underfoot. The swollen rivers burst their banks, surging into neighbouring fields and the ditches are full, giving the ducks plenty of places to play.

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There’s no doubt that January is a dark month, the twinkle of Christmas is gone, leaving behind it the moody greys, smudgy browns and stolid greens. There have been dark skies, blue tinged fogs, days of creaseless rain, but in the briefest pockets of sunshine the signs of spring start to gleam.

The snow came in the first week of January, arriving suddenly one afternoon on a bitter wind. I can’t help but be excited about snow. Even as I wince at the thought of my plants under its weight, the child in me loves to see it. And it was beautiful, cloaking everything in white, making a fairytale of the garden and distracting me from every window.

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All it takes is one final storm, the wind howling around the chimneys, the rain driving down in punishing torrents, and every leaf is on the floor. The golden carpet that covered the lawn has been pummelled brown and the garden seems suddenly naked and bare. I can see the sun rising red through the woods, the trunks of the trees stark and black against the brightening sky, their angled branches gnarled and twisted, like crooked old fingers, stiff in the cold.

There’s a beauty in the barrenness of winter, in the shape of the dark trees against a still, grey sky, their every twig laid bare, no cloak of leaves to hide behind. The garden is all structure, there are no flowers, no fripperies, just plain earth and any plant that can stand the cold. For some, this time of year is bleak, but for me the mid-winter comes with a sense of peace and stillness.

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There’s such change in November, but it happens so gradually that you don’t really notice it, until one day you realise there are more leaves on the floor than there are on the trees. Carpets of gold and copper cover the lawn, ankle deep swathes of leaves strewn down the paths of the woods and swirling, dancing whirls of oak, beech, hornbeam and sycamore skitter in the breezes and stiff autumnal winds that come barrelling across the fields and into the garden.

I love November, everyone else always seems in such a hurry to get past it, hustling us all into December and Christmas, but for me it’s month to slow down and pause, to take note and turn inwards. It feels like the garden does the same. Time seems to stop, there’s nothing urgent to do, yes, I could clear all the beds and make it all tidy, I could rake leaves and deadheaded faded flowers, but there’s plenty of time for all that. It’s not like spring when everything needs to happen now, Autumn is slower, gentler somehow.

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There’s been a slow slip into autumn this year, after the hot summer the cooler, damper days seem to have perked things up a little in our quiet corner of France. The leaves are just starting to turn amber, burnished clusters glowing in the sunlight that slides in sideways now, its low angle reaching into shady corners that haven’t felt the warmth of the sunlight all summer long. There is still a lot of green though, still a lot of change to come, the avenues of limes are just letting go of their first clutches of leaves, which sift down on the breeze to lightly pepper the paths.

Our mornings have risen through the mist, the air soft and still mild, the sweet caramel scent of crisping foliage and that first hint of woodsmoke carried on the wind. These are the autumn days that I’ve been longing for, the ones that were in short supply last year, when the rain swept in unrelenting and didn’t leave for months.

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Some Septembers are warm, the air sweet with the scent of the autumn cyclamen that grow under the trees by the house, the afternoons full of sunshine, the doors and windows flung open to let the breeze slip through the house. This September though has been cool, a welcome relief after such a hot summer, but a bit of a shock too. As we’ve lit fires and hauled in logs to keep everyone warm the garden has come back to life. Lawns growing again as if it’s spring, the grass greening up after the first week of rain, cosmos plants that have struggled to flower all summer suddenly budding up and throwing out flowers, weeds springing up everywhere.

I’m not someone who mourns the end of summer, I’ve loved the change in the weather, loved being able to work outside on dry afternoons, fighting back the weeds and trying to stop everything getting too wayward. If the borders were tangled in August they are positively knotty now, cosmos tangling through salvias, sedums flopping despite their supports, roses half heartedly flowering again, thistles trying to muscle their way through everything. Thankfully the Japanese Anemones have withstood the wind and rain, standing tall and drawing your eye away from the weeds and towards their pretty pink faces instead.

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My August garden has been thriving on unintentional neglect, growing on, flowering, fruiting and fading without much attention from me, and I’m so grateful to it. Between the forbidding heat and a house full to the brim with guests there has been little time for anything other than some cursory deadheading.

While I haven’t been looking, flowers have fallen over themselves and their neighbours, handily draping wayward stems over unweeded soil, and sending up flowers to distract everyone, bar the most keen fault-finders, from the bits I haven’t had time for.

It was all going well earlier in the month; my nerves in the run up to our Summer Flower Retreat finding me weeding, deadheading, staking and stringing-up at all hours, in all weather. But then after that glorious weekend, when the garden did me proud, time somehow slipped away from me, the canicule broke, the rain came, bringing blissfully cooler weather, and the weeds went boom.

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There’s a mellowing in July, the brighter colours of early summer fading and softening through the long sunny days. July swept in over hot golden fields and mercifully blew out again on a cool northerly breeze. The temperatures dipped down to a normal Sarthoise summer and both the garden and I were grateful.

The heat sent some flowers over fast; the sweet peas crisping in days, and brought others out early; sunflowers stretching their necks upwards, turning their smiling faces and basking in sunshine. They’re such happy flowers, and this year I finally picked all the right varieties, so that once the main flower has been cut the side shoots take over and give me some more.

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June is quiet, it feels like a pause, a calming down, a deep breath, muffled somehow. The first flush of roses slowly scatter themselves to the ground and the bright colours of spring fade away. Green takes over again, not the bright, vivid green of spring, but the deeper almost-grown-up green of early summer, a little sulky and adolescent. The fields are quiet too, haymaking over, the farmers taking a well-earned rest as the crops start to grow, wheat slowly turning from green to gold as the days get hotter and longer.

I find what time I can to deadhead the roses, not just snipping off the spent flowers but cutting deeply down each stem, between the third and fourth sets of leaves to encourage fresh flowers later in the summer. My wheelbarrow fills quickly, dried flower heads, old leaves and stems and any of the spindly growth from the centre of each bush; anything growing inwards which might stop the airflow through each plant. I clear old leaves from the soil, trying not to trample the flowers growing in the borders as I go, leaning, bending, stretching to clear the earth.

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If colour comes back to the garden in April, then it’s May that sees the return of the scent. The first sweet cloud of Lily of the Valley as I walk past the bed at the end of the gîte, the heady notes of the wisteria, thrown into each room as the vine tries to climb through every window, and the bright floral scent of the elderflowers at the mouth of the woods, their pollen dusting everything as we pick them to make cordial. Then comes the musky, citrusy perfume of the roses as they slowly open in the sunshine, light and gentle at first, almost tentative, but then as every flower uncurls their scent sweeps into every corner.

By the end of the month the very first of the lime blossoms burst and we walk into pockets of fresh, honey-scented air on every trip into the garden, not cloying and sweet but a clean, soapy smell that makes me stretch out my arms and smile wide. Wherever I am, wherever I go I want there to be lime trees. Forever now, when I smell that smell I will be transported back to summers here, it will always be a memory trigger for me.

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I love April, I always have, I love its brightness, the crispness of the light after a gloomy winter, the clean colours, so sharp and pure; pinks, whites, yellows, blues, there’s nothing smudgy or tonal about April, it’s new and shiny, and perfect in a way that no other time of year is.

It’s full of hope and expectation too, we wait for seeds to germinate, blossom buds to burst, bulbs to come up. And it all happens at once in an explosion of colour and energy. Within a week every tree is in leaf and everything is green. It all moves so fast it’s hard to keep up, I go from waiting for everything to start to grow to somehow suddenly being behind already.

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A swell of birdsong, the strengthening of the sun, the days lengthening and the countryside waking up again. I will always love March. There’s a moment when everything seems to yawn and stretch, as if a distant alarm clock has rung and suddenly we’re all awake again.

For months the only sign of life from the little cottages and farmhouses that dot through the fields here has been the curling woodsmoke from the chimneys. Now though shutters are flung open and people emerge again, tractors trundling through the fields, folk chatting over fences in the village, life being lived again.

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Colour comes back in February, not at first, in the beginning it’s just more of the same sludgy greys, browns and greens that have been hanging around since the end of November. But as the month wears on the fogs start to lift, a bright green burr begins to appear on some of the fields, there’s a shimmer of white in the woods where the snowdrops gather, and in the sunniest parts of the garden the first tentative celandines start to show their yellow faces.

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The garden is quiet in January, not still, but quiet. There’s a sense of impatient waiting, a drumming of fingers, an expectant sigh as we all wait for the light to return. Nothing happens quickly, things inch their way forward; the slow push upwards of the daffodils, a sliver more poking through the soil each week, the careful and tentative raising of the snowdrop flowers, which shyly open, peering out at us from their delicately dipped heads, the hellebores and anemones beginning to shoot, but really biding their time until February.

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The December Garden is mainly for foraging, reaching deep into the yew bush to clip its branches, loosening the choke hold of berried ivy from the trees and pulling it in ribbons to the ground, searching out branches of firs with pine cones attached, and gathering the deep, pearly-blue berries of viburnum tinus.

December is the month for bringing in the greens, for making wreaths and draping shelves and mantels to remind ourselves that even in the darkest days of winter there’s still life to be had, still a little magic to be found in nature.

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Only the rudbeckia seem to have survived this November, hanging on while the other flowers have faded, determined to finally have their moment after I planted them out far too late for them to really get started. They’re a little tattered, their petals battered by November winds and rain, but they’re still standing. Even after the snow their stems are still proudly straight and tall.

This November has been gloomy, heavy grey skies presiding over most of it, with just a scant scattering of those gloriously golden autumn days that I love so much. The leaves have been beautiful though, golds, coppers and bronzes shining out against the grey, catching in the brief spells of sunlight, glowing beautifully on the dark days.

Winds have whipped in from the west and north across the fields, arriving every few days to tug the leaves from the trees. They’ve whirled around the garden on the air currents, twisting and spinning to the ground. Now they are gathering on the terrace, crowding on the old granite steps and huddling in corners, like dancers after a party, limp with effort, ready for the end.

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A quick reminder that my journal will be back next Sunday, once we’re home and settled back into château life after our trip back to the UK to visit our families and friends. (Ps, if you’re missing it you can access the full archive of previous journal entires and all the additional posts about our life at Château de la Ruche, by taking out a paid subscription)

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October always takes me away from my garden, I leave it behind, feeling tired after a summer of tending to the flowers, relieved to be away from it for a little while, crossing my fingers that the scant sowing of seeds I’ve already set will survive in my absence, wondering if there’ll still be dahlias when I come home? I leave it without a backward glance, but it’s the thing that has the strongest pull to bring me back, that and the dog’s ears and the water pressure in my shower.

I miss the trees and the peace of it, the misty mornings and rainy afternoons. I miss the sweet, earthy scent of a dull and damp October morning as I tramp along the drive with the dog and a trail of cats, that slight fungal spice of woodland in autumn, the sugary smell of leaves beginning to fall. I miss having flowers to pick, and watching the landscape around us shift subtly day-by-day.

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