It’s amazing how quickly things change. We sat through, and possibly revelled in the wettest December in living memory. How then , a few weeks later can we be despairing of the dry! The heat is the answer, that nasty golden eye beating down on us and our roses relentlessly. In my younger days I worked on through it and got hot and brown, but as I’ve got older I can’t handle being out in it for any length of time, so it’s early starts and late finishes for me in the garden at the moment, with a few short sortees in between. Bookwork and housework get done in it, along with baking and preserving, but not gardening.
The roses are loving it though, as it’s still wet deep down where their roots are and the find that nasty golden eye very invigorating. Basal shoots are still bursting out all over the place and flower production is at an all time high for January. The flowers cope less well in the sun and tend to go from bud stage to blown in a matter of hours. It’s interesting to note how different plants react, some roses, just like some people, cope much better with the glare.
Talking about change, I currently have this shot of the old fashioned border as my screen saver
and recently while trawling through photos looking for perennial shots to put on the perennial page I came upon the same view (slightly different angle, but the same piece of garden) 3 years ago
Haha I was so proud of how good it looked I took a photo!!! Having scoffed at the thought, there were a lot less weeds in that garden 3 years ago…