Columbia Road Market 36

To salute the arrival of Summer this week, I bought three of these exuberant Marguerite Daisies for £5 at Columbia Rd to plant in a flower pot on the wall in a sunny spot. You cannot have Summer without Daisies, and this particular variety have these fine long white petals that catch the sunlight, causing the flowers to glow like stars against the deep shades of my garden.

Another modest plant that I love is Calendula, that I was brought up to call Marigold. For £4, I bought eight of this yellow variety to fill two pots on my sill. Every flower is a like a child’s drawing of a sunburst and will remind me of sunlight even when the clouds come over. The Marigold’s tangy scent, and viscous fleshy flowers and leaves take me back to my childhood garden. You can be sure I will save all the seeds in a brown paper bag in my desk drawer to scatter next Spring.

Cultivated in England since medieval times for its medicinal properties, the humble Marigold is a stalwart of the cottage garden, and even if some reject it for its ubiquity and gaudy shades, it is so familiar to me that, like the Daisy, the season would be lacking without it. These pop flowers are my invocation to long happy Summer days.