This month, how the spring/early summer weather has affected my garden. Following on from the very wet mild winter we had a wet mild March and April which caused Magnolias to flower in March, and Rhododendrons to be in full flower in mid-April. It was still wet in May – the flooding in the valley below lasted til well into May – but the temperatures did not significantly warm up, so what was ‘mild’ for winter and early Spring, was now ‘below average’ for most of May. After we had planted the tomatoes in the polytunnel, and the climbing French beans and runner beans and courgettes outside at the end of May/beginning of June we had cold early summer weather – particularly at night. Several nights were as low as 7 degrees, meaning that the tomatoes have grown long and quite gangly. Other people around the country have also reported the gangly growth on tomatoes, and first trusses not setting til much higher up the stem than usual – something to do with the low light levels as much as the cold I suspect.
The beans really didn’t grow away well. Here they are planted out on 14 May:-
In the second week in July they were still less than halfway up their poles – nearly 2 months after being planted out, so definitely they have been checked. Locally others were the same. The growth has not been helped by the stiff cold north or east wind for most of June – not at all our prevailing wind direction – which has also contributed to the ground drying hard and fast as we had little rain after the first week of June. Then all of a sudden, we had some warmer weather and some rain in mid-July and the beans shot up but few flowers. Now at the end of July, they are flowering, and setting beans, and I have picked a few handfuls, but the growth is long and spindly, so we shall see if the cropping picks up during August.
I would be commenting on the growth of the courgettes, and the sweet peas planted at the same time, but most of the plants have been severely attacked by slugs and snails, a definite scourge of this wet weather. I try not to use slug pellets except on the beans when first planted out or around the courgettes when tiny, but this year, even the slug pellets didn’t deter them – and our garden centres didn’t seem to be able to keep up with local demand for them as the shelves were always empty when we visited! I have talked about this with gardeners around the country, and all are reporting on more slug and snail damage too.
The mild and wet early spring led to lots of lush growth both in the borders and of the grass on the hillside. The plant growth was so lush, especially hardy geraniums of various sorts, that when next door’s kids kicked their football over the fence, we couldn’t find it in the undergrowth – see photo below from last day in May:-
For the first time, some of our plants reached the size and shape that people with “proper” soil normally get – not something usually achieved on our thin quickly draining chalk!
If you see below from mid-May the impressive silver leaves are in fact extreme mildew on the Acanthus Mollis (Bears Britches):-
I have never had this much mildew on these. Some years a bit appears later in the summer, but this year the relentless rain and quick growth of all the plants because of the moisture caused this almost as soon as the leaves appeared. I left the plant alone to see what would happen, and the flower spikes have appeared, seemingly without the mildew on them. Here they are on 20/6/24:-
And fully flowering on 24 July:-
Perhaps you can also see the bindweed trying to strangle them in these photos? There was a time in early June, as the light levels suddenly improved that you could almost see the plants growing, no sooner had you cleared the foliage to be able to walk down the garden path, than two days later it was back lax and floppy growth – and the bindweed was growing so fast it buried a patch of Love in a Mist (Nigella damascena) in a matter of four days. I don’t know if you’ve tried unwinding bindweed from a flimsy stem-like Love in the Mist – but no matter how careful you are, you inevitably end up decapitating the stalk and losing the lovely flower/seed pod:-
Next to this Love in the Mist, was a big patch of Lysimachia ciliata ‘Firecracker’, which usually stands up on its own – here the growth was so lush it was lolloping:-
It too had succumbed to the rampant bindweed:-
And I REALLY struggled to not snap or bend these fragile stems – resorting generally to chopping them off almost at the ground –then we had a run of dry weather so they have not yet thrown out any new leaves from the ground, though the clump I dug up and stuck in a tub trug which is sitting in water IS reshooting.
Our roses have done very well this year, flowering for a long time, starting with the old roses in May – here is a shot of four different ones at the end of May including the Burnet Double White Rose at the front, and Rosa ‘William Lobb’ middle ground:-
The Rambler R. ‘Saunder’s White’ had a very good showing, lots of new growth a huge way along the climbing frames we put in for it three years ago:-
This shot of Rosa Rambling Rector from the beginning of June shows how well it flowered this year but also shows how lush the grass on the chalk hillside grew:-
Despite that, this year we have been rewarded with a veritable carpet of Common Spotted Orchids in the grass – here at the beginning of June – the original Dactylorhiza fuschii plant is the largest spike by the cane, the rest have seeded from that one:-
Another phenomenon of the wet was the very early emergence of black fly – here infesting Golden Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium ‘aureum’) in early June:-
The honeysuckles came out in early June – here Lonicera periclymenum ‘High Scentsation’ with Lonicera periclymenum ‘Graham Thomas’ behind on 7 June:-
And the colder than average weather meant they, as well as the roses, kept their blooms much longer than in hot weather, but their scent was muffled as the ambient temperature and the cold wind stifled them, until the week of the summer solstice when the wind dropped and the temperature rose, and SUDDENLY we had the most glorious scent which increased in the evenings when it was warm enough (for a couple of nights) to have the patio doors open. Here they both are more than two weeks later, still flowering gloriously:-
Also doing extremely well this summer were both the Rosa Glauca, and the Lonicera periclymenum ‘Serotina’, as you can see from both this long shot of the honeysuckle enveloping the Rosa Glauca, and then the close-up of the cinnamon-coloured hips and the beautiful honeysuckle flower complimenting each other on 24 July:-
As we know the heat around the Solstice didn’t last, and the beginning of July was cold again, for us dry and cold, and then suddenly deluges of rain as the second week of July began. The wet we had experienced last winter, which was more intense for longer meant that for the first time when we cleared the polytunnel of the pots/seats/hosepipe reels stored there over winter, we found several small round holes cut into the black enviromesh floor, and rodent burrows underneath. We have definitely had more rodent activity this spring and summer, usually, they are in the fields below us – but as they were still flooded, they had found the driest places to hang out. Consequently, next door’s cat is very interested in the polytunnel, and between her and the rodents, many pots of tagetes which are supposed to be growing to stop the aphids from attacking the tomato plants are being uprooted/squished before they can get properly established. Any that survive that are being decimated by the slugs…
The cooler weather has meant that our berry thieves (blackbirds) on the Berberis Darwinii right by our patio door, who usually descend and strip the bush of the blue barberries in a week have been working away for much longer as the berries ripened gradually, some at a time, so we had several blackbirds, dunnocks, a male blackcap (see below), and even a robin trying its luck over a period of at least three weeks – a great wildlife spectacle:-
Indeed, it went on long enough that himself picked some barberries to try on us. A bit astringent for me, but they made an excellent addition to my coleslaw, even if they do turn your tongue blue!
How has your garden fared? Next month I shall talk about Sarracenia – a genus himself is fascinated by, but which do not like chalk, unfortunately.
Sheila May
