When the Nasturtiums start opening in the garden, for me it really marks the beginning of Summer and also the promise of Autumn…

I first sewed them in a really stoney and not very good piece of earth as I’d been told they actually thrive in those type of places…

They self seed every year now and their resilience to snails, caterpillars and even cats is completely admirable…

They’re so vibrant and beautifully trail into other plants too…

I move the seedlings around a bit each Summer and try them in other spots, so this year I’m hoping they’ll pop up next to the shed door amongst the Aquilegia (which I rescued from a woman at the tip!)

I also put them into salads and on top of soups as they’re edible, and they just bloom like crazy the more you pick them…

They’re quite delicate, but I thought I’d see if giving them an Ikebana outing would be possible…

It was quite tricky as the stems are brittle, but I used a cocktail stick to make holes in the oasis first and then very gently eased the stems in.

I wanted to capture the way they co-habit with other plants with their bright abundance, so I placed them in levels together with honeysuckle, opium poppy stems and montbretia leaves…