May in Pavilion Gardens

Royal Pavilion gardens

Plants to see in the flowerbeds, No 2 of 4

For all the keen gardeners among you, try to identify the following while you are strolling through the Pavilion Gardens during May:

• Double pink hawthorn blossom
• Persian, Chinese and common lilacs (syringa persica, syringa chinensis and syrnga vulgaris)
• Guelder rose (viburnum opulus) - flowering underneath the laburnum trees
• mounds of Spanish broom (genista hispanica)
• Purple broom (cytisus purpureus)
• Pink bridewort (spirea salicifolia)
• Clumps of tulips
• Periwinkle (inca minor and major) - at the front of the shrubberies
• Evergreen candytuft (iberis sempervirens)
• Yellow daisies of leopards bane (doronicum orientale)
• Forget-me-nots

Also, later in the month, scented yellow day lilies (hemerocallis flava) and the double crimson peony (paeonia officinalis rubra plena).

[Information from: 'Set for a King: 200 years of gardening at the Royal Pavilion', by Mike Jones, Royal Pavilion, Museums & Libraries, 2005; previously published in the 'North Laine Runner', No 179, March/April 2006]