Well, I have a feeling that we are going to have to rethink our gardening in England if this weather pattern is here to stay.
Water conservation will be paramount. Gravel gardens will be the norm – I’m even wondering whether to turn the herbaceous borders here in to gravel beds because it has been no fun watching some of the plants struggle, and no fun just keeping things barely alive with a can of water here and there.
I had a daydream that if I won the lottery and became a millionaire (highly unlikely as I rarely buy a ticket), I would install a drip hose watering system throughout the garden. Apparently, you can still use these in a hosepipe ban, provided they reach certain criteria. That kind of watering would make all the difference.
Plants that have struggled include one of my favourites – astrantia. And heleniums, primroses and clematis which are not helped by the heat which comes out of our brick walls, which also make the beds even drier.
Plants which haven’t minded the heat are all the silver leaved ones like lavender, and the long tap rooted things like hollyhocks and verbascums, plus my favourite eryngiums and other thistley things. Pity the garden centres, and the small commercial nurseries who have to keep huge and varied stocks of plants going.
Other news from Ryton House is that our mulberry tree split down the middle. I heard it go and it was an amazing noise, though I didn’t find out what had made it till some time later. Apparently, mulberries get very brittle and maybe the heat intensified this. Anyway, the whole tree will have to come down. I am not feeling as sad as I might because we planted it in the wrong place, and it didn’t seem to be producing mulberries. Win some lose some ….
As you know I am very taken with the Japanese 72 micro seasons and the descriptions they use. Let’s live in hope:- for August 3-7 it is ‘Great rains sometimes fall’. For September 8-12 it is ‘Dew glistens on grass’ and September 18-22 ‘Swallows leave’. Does this mean the end of the summer?