This year the garden has really taken a bashing

Or are you still waiting, presumably, for the second blooming?

I'm hoping my roses will come back into bloom. Only one flower at the moment.

Kali2

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 was going to ask you how your Chelsea chop went - was it successful?

It's been an odd year, Whitewave.

Some things are doing well, others not so.

Some peonies and the roses were splendid, one hydrangea is smothered in flowers, two others looking very sad. Roxanne is flowering merrily away but the penstemons are hopeless this year.
Some fuschias are good, a couple of others will need to come out.

As for the lavender - the Hidcote looks rather sad but still upright, but the other bushes which were sold as Hidcote but aren't are completely flattened.

No beans yet but would anyone like some courgettes?

And it's raining again.

We have had a lovely summer. Even now with the rain forecast to end the dry spell we have had just one half hour heavy shower yesterday and a few sprinkles earlier in the week, not enough to wet the road under the trees. Go down 3mm and the ground is dust dry. I did read of floods elsewhere in my city. Perhaps there is a force field around our area keeping the rain away.

Beautiful colours Bluebelle!

Thanks Sparklefizz I actually leave it to sort itself out for the most part it’s only small but got a lot going on in it if one thing fails another takes over
Most of it is self seeded a few things in pots that I ve bought or been given
I have a beach deckchair in one corner (only bit free) and feel like a $100
It’s my little haven

Love your garden, BlueBelle - really gorgeous.

My garden has been a joy but then I don’t expect anything tidy or correct in it, everything grows where it wants and usually fits in really well it was all blues and mauves a week or so ago now with red begonias and lots of black eyed Susies nasturtiums day lilies and montbetia it’s all yellow oranges and reds
I don’t do much I don’t feed it or anything I dead head and tidy and watch and enjoy
I do have a pear tree that is usually very productive but only has three pears on it I thing the high winds blew all the blossom off

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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............