Agnes Stevenson on rain glorious rain
The hot and wet weather has had an impact on our gardens, says expert Agnes Stevenson. But the conditions make it a perfect time for planting.
Warm weather and high rainfall makes everything grow and the hostas that were small and insignificant last summer have turned into monsters, crowding out their neighbours and providing shelter for small creatures during the recent downpours. Frogs are living in the grass at the bottom of the slope and the gunnera that was given a temporary home in a recycled compost sack is threatening to burst out of confinement, its huge leaves getting bigger by the day. Eventually it will join the frogs at the bottom of the garden where it can grow as big as it likes, but before I start digging out a new border for it, I have to work out the whereabouts of the underground electrical cable that powers the light at the front of the drive. Dig through that and the tulip suppliers who rely on me for a big chunk of their profits won’t be getting an order this autumn. Not everything is as happy as the gunnera about the current weather. The oriental poppies I’ve been growing on in pots are in a sulk. Even with lots of added grit, their compost has been holding too much moisture, so they’ve been losing leaves faster than they can grow new ones. Unless I repot them quickly they may not recover. After a recent downpour entire stems on some of the biggest
hydrangeas buckled under their own weight when their huge heads filled with water. They weren’t the only casualties – almost everything that wasn’t staked or tied to a fence ended up facedown in the soil. If you’ve returned from holiday expecting to find your garden wilting, then the good news is you should have suffered no losses. On the other hand, you may need to use a machete to hack your way to the front door. Get planting now while the soil’s wet and warm then stand back to watch everything grow at super-speed. I’ve been taking advantage of the conditions to add clematis and rambling roses where they can scramble through other shrubs and I’ve been planning ahead, planting winter-flowering honeysuckles where their fragrance will envelop anyone approaching the front door. The fragrance of the alpine pinks has been lovely too but they didn’t like the downpours, their flowers turning to mush as quickly as they opened. However the plants themselves are thriving because they are growing in a stone wall where their roots are perfectly happy, despite the lack of soil, which shows that finding the right spot in the garden for fussy plants is the secret to keeping them happy, whatever the weather.