Wet summer winners and losers:
Winners.
Some species of plants have revelled in the long wet summer. Those that have performed best include Bamboo, Semiarundinaria fastuosa has but on new culms of over 20 ft. Bananas in the water garden have put out some huge lush leaves also near by is the grass Arundo donax, with its silvery green grass-like canes easily 15 feet tall. Canna lilies have grown and flowered well so have the Ginger lilies (varities of Hedychium). Our three main genera, Rhododendron, Magnolia and Camellia have really enjoyed the long damp season. The large leaf Rhododendron in particular.
Seed pods of some of the magnolias are a bit lacking this year but look at the camellia. Huge kiwi fruit size seed pods on the wild reticulata hybrids are well worth a look.
Camellia reticulata seed pod
Losers.
Some plants have struggled a bit. The rose garden has thought against the odds but a lot of the flowers, especially in August, were damaged by heavy rain before they opened, if they opened at all. Hydrangeas are not as good as previous years. Flowers are later and not as many.
The south lawn has been very challenging for the whole of the summer. In the ned we gave up trying to cylinder mow it and instead have been using a Flymo. This has the effect of limited to no stripes and clumps of grass that need to be removed after cutting taking longer to finish the job.
Structurally the paths in the garden are, luckily, mostly on level ground but the paths with any amount of slope suffered with water run off and gravel washing away.
Lets hope for a better summer next year.
Coming soon is my report from a recent Plantnetwork climate Change conference. Its not all doom and gloom.
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