It has barely rained at all this month. There was some fairly determined but brief drizzle at one point, but mainly it has been hot (very hot) and dry. The garden is crispy.
I, negligently, went away for a few days when it was dry and hot and I did not ask the person looking after the house to water the hanging baskets. I came home to a dead hanging basket. I have been watering it since I returned over a week ago, but to no avail. It is dead. The petunias in the elephant pot have sort of recovered a bit and the pelagoniums hung on ok, but the hanging basket is no more and so I will remove it.
The standard hydrangea is almost dead, it is hanging on by a thread. I am watering it (can't you tell?) but damage has been done and I am not sure how well it will continue to grow.
Whilst all is not great in the front garden, likewise all is not bad. This salvia, mallow, Graham Thomas combination gives me great joy. The thing I enjoy most of this planting is that I can see it through my front window when I am sitting in the lounge. The salvia is a bee magnet and it is just a constant pleasure.
I have edited the vebascums in the side garden. They had got too much, next year I will have to be more cautious with how many I let grow. They have been a delight though, covered in bees and butterflies, it has been an invasion worth allowing.
I pause to admire the climbing petunias, they have been a total joy. They thankfully recovered quickly from lack of watering.
and the succulents are loving the weather. They are getting a water once a week, but they are happy happy happy.
The Smell Me and Dye garden is a tangled mess of soapwort, woad, madder, teasles, roses and couch grass. The ground is rock hard and it has been too hot to get out there and do the serious weeding that it needs. It looks as abandoned as it has been. This has been really frustrating for me, I have had the time to get out into the garden yet it has felt impossible in the current conditions. A few times I have told myself I am being a wimp and to just get out there, so some light faffing has occurred but nothing like what needs to be done. I feel like I am waiting for a perfect day and perfect conditions that just do not exist. It is not good.
So I pause and say hello to the cardoon that is, as ever, a bee magnet.
and also clearly drought tolerant. Such plants are to be admired and encouraged.
The Courtyards is looking reasonable. The Christmas Cactus is on holiday outdoors and enjoying itself.
The aspidistras are similarly loving being outside. I used to leave them outside all year, but recent winters have been so wet that they have had to come indoors. You might think you can see a nettle emerging, but that would be ridiculous.....
The backgarden is dry and crispy. You can see in the foreground the current state of the Rheum. It is not completely dead, but it is not happy. I hope it survives but I just cannot water everything: it always feels to me that it would be irresponsible to use that much water even if I had the hours it would take.
Mme Alfred Carriere is still doing well. She is flowering her little socks off.
and I have managed to keep the hosta divisions planted into Mavis alive. Huzzah.
The hollyhock is doing well too. I used to have a few hollyhocks but seem now to just have this one. I need to remedy this, I love this tall plants and so do bees.
Did I mention it is looking crispy?
The Prairie Borders have been going through changes. They are now mainly Echinops borders. I have been in a state of indecision about them for a year or so and earlier this year decided to remove them. I would mow them. and then I didn't. I looked at how much the bees and butterflies love echinops and realised that the garden was, as ever, telling me what it wanted me to do. It wanted me to leave it alone and let it be. So I will.
Not sure if you can see the huge bramble emerging from Wild Edric? It needs dealing with. Why are brambles so drought tolerant? They are growing when most things are too dry to contemplate it.
This sorbus has looked better,
as has this Cornus, which I have chucked some buckets of water over, but it is not responding.
I have been watering the edgeworthia but I am very worried about it. After years of thinking that frost would kill it, it looks like it will be drought. Sigh.
I strimmed the Wild Garden the other day. It is not a serious cut, more just reducing the height and removing the Cow Parsley before it seeds too much. It is all very dry.
The Bramley Tree is looking huge. I had a third removed from it last year and I just can't tell. It has quite a lot of apples on it, but not as many as usual. I predict crumble.
and the pond? It is empty, well possibly there might be some water in the deep bit, but it is very dry. I have considered topping it up, but it feels wrong to do this.
Is there any rain on the horizon? A vague threat of drizzle next week possibly. I worry. I really worry. I have made a conscious decision to let the garden sort itself out, there seems little point in rescuing plants that cannot handle this weather if this is what our weather is now going to be. I feel lazy and irresponsible yet at the same time it feels irresponsible to try and do otherwise. and we are not in August yet.
Sigh.
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