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Thank you, Margaret..
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Marlornea, how's 'Lady Hillingdon' coping with the drought and severe heat?
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Still blooming Andrew, quite a few here and there on the plant... lighter coloured in the heat... unwatered and throwing lots of stiff canes at the top which I've just pruned off... obviously enjoys these conditions... I had another 90+F today and more tomorrow... I've had next to no rain for 10 weeks straight... I might get rain Friday, but I don't like the lightning that will come with it... hope your roses are good this summer, it's been extraordinary... if I didn't garden I would enjoy it more..
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We have had a couple of light showers since the end of May but only enough to lay the dust not wet the soil. The first part of June saw some very good flowers but then we had 29C and most became rather small and wouldn't last beyond two days. The 'Lady Hillingdon' in a client's garden in the village looks stunning too but most other roses are struggling with their second flush. The hybrid musks are coping better and 'Agnes' has had a further 10 flowers with another 8 or so buds to come. All the fields are brown and tinder dry, farmers complain (as always), that crops shrivel and cattle have no fresh grass to eat. The stream in front of my cottage is reduced to a little trickle, all the fisherman on the rivers Torridge and Taw aren't catching any salmon. Devon looks more like southern Spain. I water like a fiend, only 'Madame Alfred Carrier' looks really fresh and happy flowering continually well and putting up masses of healthy growths. The Met. Office predicts that the highest ever recorded temp. of 38C might be beaten on Friday,grape growers are expecting a superb vintage.
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There is no water left in any of the streams around here, not even a trickle... I'm dreading Friday, I want the rain but not the heat... I'm hoping it will be a bit less where I am, but we're not far off from what London gets.. at times like these we need air con, but few have it in this country...
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"The farmer talks of crops.
His heart is in his boots.
The drought will spoil the tops.
The rain will spoil the roots."
For an Irish-Australian equivalent, look up "Said Hanrahan" (It's too long to post here.)
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'If the sun rise gray and clere in the morning, and likewise setteth without darknesse not loosing a minute in the declination: if the evening skye be reddy and not fierie, most purple than scarlet: if the Moone be cleere when it is four or five days old: if it lighten after Sunne-set without thunder: if the dewe fall in great abundance and in the rising ascend up to the mountaines: if the North Winde blow strong blow strong: if the Owl doe whup much and not scrytch; if the flyes at night play much in the Sun's beames: if Crowes flocke much together and cakell and talke: if Bats flye busily up and down after Sunne-set, if you see Cranes fly high and Water Fowle make their haunts farre off from water, all these are most certaine signes of very faire weather which will follow after.'
Gervase Markham.
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..so quaint, but true... thanks Andrew and Margaret....
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The computer's spellcheck had great fun with that! Yes, thanks Margaret, I really enjoyed reading the "Said Hanrahan" poem"
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#10 of 24 posted
26 JUL 18 by
Marlorena
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Imagine translating into another language... please, don't anyone try this at home..
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Thank you for the Markham piece, which I didn't know.
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Mmmmmmmmmmmm steady warm, sweet, delicious rain this morning. I've come in from the garden soaked to the skin. All plant life is basking in this moistness and giving a collective vegetative sigh of relief.
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#13 of 24 posted
27 JUL 18 by
Marlorena
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Very little for me Andrew, a short thunderstorm last night, but today is the end of it I think, it's finally over... I remember 1976, it was dry for a long time, but never the temps we're having this summer, a string of mid 90's F is not something I've ever known before... every day in the 90's.. it's 93 at the moment... this consistency is extreme for us, common for warm climates but not England..
It's now 95 in the shade here, if this is global warming then I've had enough of it... it's usually a one off but not this summer... God knows what it is in London.. imagine..
Of course it's a lot worse elsewhere, I should point that out, and I shouldn't moan about it, look what happened in Greece the other day, and in California last year, all those fires broke out... this is nothing really unless one is in poor health, or the animals suffer, which they do because of human neglect...
I once spent a summer in Adelaide, Australia where temps were mid 40's C, whatever that is in F... enjoyed a stroll along Glenelg beach in it too... you know... mad dogs and Englishwomen...
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...Louder, and louder
Than mortal gunpowder,
The heav'nly artillery kept crashing and roaring,
The lightning kept flashing, the rain too kept pouring,
While they, helter-skelter,
In vain sought for shelter
From what I have heard term'd, 'a regular pelter;'...
Sir Walter Scott.
I too am ancient enough to remember 1976. That was particularly bad because 1975 was hot and dry then there was little rain that winter too. In this part of the country they were reduced to using stand pipes in the street for their water and we were allowed to leave school early because of the heat. In the 1990's I went to Romania and often stayed in a small village in the south. Here in August the temperature would reach 43C. Everyone started work at 6am, by lunchtime they were inside their homes where the walls were 1M thick and lovely and cool.
In the U.K. it is the same as when we get 1CM of snow and the country grinds to a halt. We are blessed that we seldom have extremes of weather it is why we can grow plants from a vast range of climates and have some of the best gardens in the world. We must be truly thankful for our climate and embrace these occasional ups and downs
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#15 of 24 posted
28 JUL 18 by
Marlorena
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Oh I agree Andrew, we're not used to extremes are we?... and our gardens and landscapes reflect that... I wish the rose named after the above poet was as good as his writings... unfortunately I don't think it is...
I was just thinking, when you went to Romania that presumably was post-Ceaucescu… which was probably just as well...
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No, I don't think many of the Penzance briers are much good, there are far better and improved varieties to grow.
Yes, Ceaucescu was killed in 1989 and I was there, plant collecting initially, 13 times from 1992 to 2001.
We had a little more rain today then there is a lot forecast for tomorrow, I hope you got some too.
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#17 of 24 posted
29 JUL 18 by
Marlorena
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Yes we got quite a bit of rain plus summer gales which have been lacking this year...
How interesting to be plant collecting in another country... the Sir Walter Scott rose I was referring to was the Austin though, not a Penzance briar...
..it's a small suckering spinosissima hybrid, that's starting to get on my nerves...
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Ah I see. I had Sir Walter Scott in my head because Lord Penzance named two roses one after himself and another after his wife then various other varieties after characters from Sir Walter Scott novels. I think there are far more attractive spinosissima hybrids than Austin's 'Sir Walter Scott' and irritatingly the name was already used three times before.
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Just an observation, not a criticism and certainly not a complaint. In North Devon since the beginning of August there has been precipitation in some form or other every single day.
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#20 of 24 posted
24 AUG 18 by
Marlorena
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I have a fondness for the Atlantic coast off north Devon... wild, romantic, gale strewn and often wet... not the kind of England 'Lady Hillingdon' would like to think about too much, I imagine...
..even here...scant rebloom for me, bits and bobs here and there, and sometimes difficult to justify it's elevated place in my garden, if I'm honest..
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It was not just the lack of water but a lot of my roses did not benefit from a feed in July as they normally do, the rain came too late, I wrote about this in my journal. I look after a 'Lady Hillingdon, climbing' for someone in the village and it grows really well but that has protection of a south facing wall. I have picked 10KG of blackberries.
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#22 of 24 posted
24 AUG 18 by
Marlorena
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I hope you've got room in your freezer for them Andrew... loads around here too, I really ought to go out and get some... I think autumn is arriving early... shrubs changing colour already...
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Half went to make bramble jelly, my favourite preserve, and half have been frozen to make blackberry and apple crumble for the lunch club in the village.
There is a lot of rain forecast for Sunday and if the weather stays cool and damp I can start moving plants around, the soil is warm and they will establish quickly. I've moved plants in July before when the weather has been particularly cold and wet.
My Rosa dumalis will have a stunning display of hips this year a lot of leaves have already fallen off the trees.
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#24 of 24 posted
24 AUG 18 by
Marlorena
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I got some decent rain today too, at long last... I've also been digging up some roses to pot up for the winter.. I just bare root them and start again, if they were in the wrong place.. I don't worry about the time of year, they should be alright..
'Lady Hillingdon' currently has one flower open, a nice one though, and masses of plum red shoots flinging out everywhere.. I might give it one more season, I don't think it's a rose I want forever...
Your lunch club are lucky to have you as a member...
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