On St Swithin's Day

July 15th is St Swithin's Day, famed for the proverb that if it rains on this day it will rain for 40 more days and if it is dry then it will be dry for 40 days.  Today it Leicester it was a dry, fine day.  Tomorrow rain is forecast - oh well.
Today has been unusual by being a day without rain.  We have had lots of rain this year.  Last year I was desperate for rain, I worried about the water level in my pond and I watered my new plantings carefully.  This year, the pond is full to full and nothing has needed additional watering.  Even the pots have not needed watering at all.
Rain sadly also brings slugs and snails.  I have never had a huge problem with them before, other than in the greenhouse, but this year they are like a plague.
Stuff is getting munched
and munched.
My roses are caught between growing well but the flowers are suffering badly from the constant wet.
My zinnias want some sun, they are tiny.
This Amaranthus is 'the tiniest amaranthus in the world' (to be sung a la Grace Fields please).
I currently have one lupin in flower, the rest are either munched or small.  This is a not a good year in many ways for the garden.  It possibly suits the British temperament, the need to talk and grumble about the weather, it is too hot, or too wet, too cold, it is the wrong sort of snow etc etc.  On and on we go, never really happy always thinking that next year our gardens will be better.  I say never really happy, but actually that is where the real happiness lies as I have to take the long view, I believe that next year is there and I believe it will be better.

So St Swithin, good old chap as I am sure you were (apparently he had a way of restoring broken eggs, now there is indeed a talent); we will take your forty days of whatever weather you decide to send us.  There will be rain and I am hoping we might get a bit more sun, but the garden will continue and there will be next year.

I leave you with Billy Bragg, any excuse really.




Comments

  1. I havent minded the rain so much as I hate the heat and watering. But it is wearing a bit thin now and I have lost quite a few seedlings and majority of dahlias to slugs. Luckily most of my garden is perennial and most of them have stood up well

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  2. I tend to grow a mix of perennials and annuals, I like the splashes of colour and the ability to move the annuals around. But this year it is just misery sadly :(

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  3. I do not usually have trouble with slugs and snails - until this year. Never has it been clearer which plants are prone to being eaten yet others are untouched. As for the half hardies I planted out, most have disappeared.

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