Everything, everywhere, all at once.

If April demands patience, May demands speed. We spent much of this year’s chilly April watching and waiting. Waiting for strong roots to grow so that plants could be despatched. Watching for fresh shoots to form that we could harvest for cuttings. And waiting for the soil to warm up so that we could plant with confidence. For weeks nothing much seemed to move.

But as always happens, when the late April days lengthen, the growth rate in the garden accelerates. And once May arrives, everything happens, all at once.

My much loved ‘collection’ of precisely four species paeonies flowered and finished in ten days. They are absolutely worth it. The late tulips held on for the first week in May and were then suddenly gone in one warm afternoon. Now, the garden must deliver without their brilliant, fleeting bling. For a week or so this year after they had gone the borders didn’t quite deliver. Alliums and herbaceous plants have been delayed by April’s chilly nights and for a few days the garden offered little more than shapely mounds in shades of green. But warmer nights have given it a kick start, and now everything, including the lawns and weeds, are growing lush and thick. It’s a sprint to keep up.

There is always much more to do than is ever possible, so we prioritise the areas that visitors will see as they walk in. First impressions count. This north-east facing border is right by the garden entrance. White tulips, Leucojums and Erythroniums have finished. Thalictrums, perennial honesty, Chaerophyllum and a pretty white Geranium are heading for their peak. Still to come is Gillenia trifoliata, dainty Silene fimbriata and dark leaved Actaeas, with a finale of saffron crocus in September.

But if we spend too much time here, tending to our careful layering, cleverer plants will get the better of us.

Marestail leapt from the canal towpath into the garden years before my time here. By creating a wildflower meadow in the orchard and leaving areas un-mown we have unwittingly given it a springboard to leap across into the rest of the garden. It is now happily growing in almost all of our borders. But the meadow is worth it - the marestail would have got there eventually anyway. And there is nothing to be done in the borders except to pull up what we can grasp, if we can see it beneath the mounds of new foliage. It is the most benign of weeds, in truth - it does no harm to plants around it. But if we do nothing it will dominate everything, everywhere.

In the nursery the pace feels even more frenetic.

Seeds sown in March are germinating fast and need potting up. Young plants in plugs want to be potted on before they turn thin and pale. Sedums, Salvias, Nepetas and Anthemis need trimming back to encourage a better plant shape and more flowers. The trimmings make perfect cuttings which will root quickly. And warmer days mean more watering. Everything needs doing right now.

On top of that, mail order despatch is at its peak and garden visitor numbers have been swelled by the beauty of our bluebell woods. It’s been busy, and at times, frenetic.

It would be easy to feel overwhelmed. Everyone here has picked up the pace and does what they can. My job is to set priorities, keep the supply of materials coming in and make sure everything is working. This is no time for irrigation systems to fail, PCs to crash or the electrics to go down. I am the nursery’s all-purpose, instant response repair engineer. Did I mention the all-day power cut and having to run the whole place on a generator on our busiest day? I thought not.

But we all still take our tea breaks and lunch breaks - communal if possible - and go home on time. This is more than important - it’s part of our essence, our culture.

So here’s my little thoughtlet for this post.

A Zen buddhist saying goes thus: You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day – unless you're too busy; then you should sit for an hour. It’s easier said than done, but I approve of the sentiment. When life is frenetic, do a bit less, not more. Let something go.

In that spirit, I had occasion to take a friend to Liverpool last week. He could have just caught the train home later, but I took the day off and walked the streets of that fine, pale stone, light-filled city, allowing my bottomless ‘to-do’ list to evaporate in the weak sunshine. Preparations were in full swing to host the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine. Tributes to that war-stricken country were everywhere - a sobering reminder of how fantastically lucky I am to have merely a propagation backlog to fret about. This was perhaps the most poignant - a huge statue covered in sandbags, as all in Kiev are.

Even more than usual, the city felt alive, vibrant, young and optimistic. The steps of Lime Street station were painted Eurovision colours as were so many shop fronts. Two different buskers’ versions of Lady GaGa’s soaring anthem ‘Shallow’ intertwined and echoed off the buildings. A gallery had fabulously wacky prints for sale by Billy Connolly. Caught up in the energy of the day, I nearly bought one. Not that any wall in my house is large enough to show it properly. Maybe I should have done it anyway. Such is the sense of frivolity on taking a day off, in May.

The highlight of the day was a visit to the new city library. Built adjacent to the old round building, which has been beautifully, lovingly restored inside and out, the two are elegantly conjoined, sitting easily together, mutually respectful. At the top of the new library, glass doors open to a simple terrace which overlooks St John’s Gardens, behind the vast St George’s Hall in which the contest was taking place.

I love a city roof top view. I always want to climb a tower, or a hill, or find a rooftop café. Maybe it’s about escaping the street level kerfuffle, perhaps it’s about trying to ‘read’ the city as a whole. I was surprised how quiet the city is, up there, if you ignore the hammering of scaffolding for the Eurovision film crews. Back at street level I noticed how many of the cars in the city were quiet, electric. Good work, Liverpool.

Perspective matters. I stood for a few minutes amid the traffic and read every name on the Hillsborough memorial. Back home, calm and reflective, we sat outside our rough little summer house and watched the swallows cavorting over the nursery, newly arrived from their hazardous 6000 mile journey to spend the summer with us.

How very, very lucky we are.