It is really hard looking out into the garden that once held a really lush and verdant lawn surrounded by borders full hydrangeas and other drought loathing specimens. There are two specimen trees that caused some concern this year; the continual dryness meant regular watering cans full of rain water were deposited over their roots and I am so relieved that now the less hot dry weather is upon us, the trees have perked up immeasurably. The same cannot be said for two buddleias, which have really gone through the mill and back. I have kept them short in height all summer so as to conserve energy. But they are both about 20 years old and naturally would have grown to at least 10 metres high. This year both are dropping their leaves earlier than usual. It is particularly sad with the maple as it is a stunning fire show for about 4 weeks whilst it goes from green to yellow, through orange and then to dark red. With it denuding itself so much earlier than usual, there is now nothing of note to come through in October/November.

The roses in the sunniest bed in the garden have really gone mad, which is a lovely bonus. Every specimen has come up pretty robustly and have had hundreds of blooms each. However, they do seem a bit more willowy than previous years and are definitely more prone to picking up viruses and other catch all diseases, much quicker than usual. We do have the old fashioned spray for black spot but it is not as pet friendly as would be acceptable. It will be a case of checking over the bushes and trying to cut out and burn as much black spot as can be removed, without damaging the shrub further.

The way forward is to wait for several complete soakings to go by and then take a cannister of water for each batch of plants. There are hundreds of shrubs and other plants which have been tottering along with fairly irregular dousings of rain water. Gardens are mini miracles. so although the lawns all died off, or looked as though they did, they respond very well to even small amounts of rain. Hurrah!