Well, having gone virtually straight from Winter to Summer, we are certainly having one of those memorable seasons! It isn’t very often that the UK has an extended period of time in the high 20°s C. Usually we think we are lucky to have a week of temperatures in the 20°s. So far, we have had 10 days of this sort of weather and it looks set to continue for at least another week.
Luckily, there has been so much rain over the last year that the majority of the plants are still looking great and, apart from the pots, I have not had to resort to watering until the last few days. However, a few plants in different areas of the garden are not starting to look stressed and so have been doused. The funny thing is that the plants that I normally expect to complain about lack of water as yet are looking fine. In order to save water, I am concentrating my efforts only on the plants that look to be in need of water.
In a previous post, I mused at to whether we might have roses and aquilegias out at the same time this year as I had previously seen in Canada – well we did. Admittedly, a few of the aqualegias had gone over, but I like to leave the seed heads in place to get even more plants in future years.
The dogs are, of course, moulting for England to try and keep cool. Ice cubes in their water bowls help and on walks, they race for every remaining puddle. At home, they put up with showers from the garden hose, but at least none has, so far, decided to take a dip in the pond!
Enjoy the weather while it lasts – this is England, so it won’t be long before we are back to cloudy skies and showers!
Gardening and dogs 