This year the garden has really taken a bashing

Ours had had periods of looking good but not so many.

Add in rabbits

The bindweed is loving it as are all the little brambles coming from nowhere at 0 to 6ft in a day!

Had a lovely first flush of roses totally ruined by the rain and still sulking. Plants bashed despite having supports. Looked like the Somme in places. Then the heatwave. Then the wind. I’ve done a lot of cutting back. Thank goodness for the hydrangeas which enjoyed the rain, but so did the weeds. How on earth do people who open their gardens cope?

You've been unlucky with the weather, Wwmk2. After a very chilly start everything in my garden just romped away; I've never known it to grow so vigorously. But we missed a lot of the rain and wind that you lot got in the south. It's raining here now, but not in a damaging way and I'm glad of it because we've had a long dry spell.

It's not often that the weather up here is better than the weather down there...

We’ve had a terrible summer and looking at the forecast nothing better for the following couple of weeks.

Today gusts up to 50+ miles an hour.

Still good to know you up north are having a good summer.

Oh kittylester that is so pretty.

This was my new border yesterday...it was all grass in March, I took up the turf, planted it and this is the result.

This morning it's a wet mess and blown to bits. Hoping if I do the same as you WW2 and cut it back it will come back again. If not, there's always next year.

This year, the garden never really got going for me. DH was seriously ill and in hospital for eight weeks at the end of last year and into January and having had plenty of time to think, got home and immediately started to get the builders in for our long awaited extension. It has been excellent therapy for him, and the extra space is welcome, but as he is the project manager and is very hands on! (I can hear him drilling something as I write), life has been a bit fraught at times

Between his illness, the extension, combined with the awful weather, the garden has been neglected. Veg plants were in small pots in the green house far too long and didn't do well once planted out, ditto the potatoes, so few survived being planted. One long border shrubbery has yet to be weeded this year. It is thick with brambles. Under control our garden is large and lovely. At the moment............

Mt dahlias and cosmos took a battering with the wind the other day.

I should have staked them weeks ago.

I have just ordered some plastic covered steel stakes online. Hopefully I can prop them back up again. Our soil is clay and I find it hard to knock in bamboo canes. I can whack the steel ones with a hammer.

On the positive side, our roses have been fantastic this year

Whitewavemark2

We’ve had a terrible summer and looking at the forecast nothing better for the following couple of weeks.

Today gusts up to 50+ miles an hour.

Still good to know you up north are having a good summer.

Please don't think I'm being unsympathetic. It's horrible to see something lovely that you've created being trashed.

Our garden looks lovely this year ( smug mode)? the heat and the rain has made everything grow well ( and we feed everything too of course.) We are in the South, but seem to have missed any really high winds where we live.All in all, it’s never looked better but as others say the weeds have grown rampant so we have tried to keep on top of that.After a slow start the tomatoes and courgettes are doing really well too (outside) and the pots and hanging baskets. So if your garden is a sheltered one then this Summer has been great.

whitewave I seem to remember that last year ( or the one before?) you had problems in the garden with high winds breaking down something, a fence? So guess you are in an exposed area.

Been away for a week, most flowers dead on return, no one to water. Have decided plastic flowers for hanging baskets next year?.

It’s very windy where I am in the mountains in Wales, but this year I invested in 50 of those rusty stakes of different heights and shapes, that blend in to the foliage, and bought lots of extra canes. It’s made a huge difference to how the garden has stood up to the weather, although it’s been a lot of work tying everything up it was worth the effort. The roses aren’t great here either though.

Worst year ever in my garden - everything was hacked by hail 3 weeks ago- a sort of natural Chelsea chop - beginning to recover now so hoping for masses of flowers late August.

I've had a weird but interesting time this year. Two of my old faithfuls (wisteria & St. John's wort) acted very out of character. A learning curve for me. Had some pleasant successes and sad failures as usual but, hard work though it is, I wouldn't swap it. A gentle joy in general. Not finished yet with a few more tardy perennials to get in.

This is our first year in this garden (only had turf and fencing) and on the whole we are quite pleased at how it shaping up for a small space. Its very sheltered so we haven't done too badly apart from the roses who dont enjoy so much rain.

My garden hasn't been brilliant this year for some reason.
Although I am quite pleased with the climbing plants which are on the new fencing. The honeysuckle and roses are doing quite well but the clematis and passion flower not.
The hanging baskets have been poor this year too, not sure why, although the windy weather certainly hasn't helped.

I've taken the hanging baskets down today because they've been wrecked. A couple of weeks ago it was so hot that it was difficult to keep them irrigated. For the last 10 days, they've been hammered by heavy rain but it was the strong winds and rain yesterday that finally finished them off.

Mixed year here as well. I was over-lavish with pine clippings in March and many things grew sky high and looked/look rather odd. Roses had one good week. Phlox, now in their 3rd summer, a triumph. A very favourite crocosmia (Emily McKenzie) failed to reappear so I held my nose and bought two more. Now of course the first two are showing signs of life so next year there'll be a forest - still, what could be nicer?

exactly the same as henetha
my clematis and passionflora have struggled
but my roses are good and honeysuckle even better
my tomatoes were not good

25Avalon

The bindweed is loving it as are all the little brambles coming from nowhere at 0 to 6ft in a day!

Love the description of your brambles, mine are just the same! The ivy that come through from next door is just the same, it’s now taking over one corner of my garden. Yet I’ve lost about three shrubs that I planted earlier this year in the extreme heat last month - despite watering frequently.

We live in the NE too and have had a lot of sunny weather, and a lot of rain too. So most plants have become gigantic!
And prolific, including the weeds.
It's a strange garden, I should say "they". we have small gardens front and back. We moved here 3 years ago and the seller of the house had got someone to clear all the old stuff and replanted with lots of bee=friendly perennials which are thriving. Theyre lovely, but need to be kept under control.
I think the soil must play a part too because we're in the middle of an ex-council estate, very urban. usually the soil in this kind of area is full or rubble and rubbish.

I'm glad I didn't bother with tomatoes this year, Lillie
Perhaps next summer will be better.