August 2026: A Long Hot Summer

As with most gardeners at the moment, the extreme weather conditions have dictated the sort of maintenance that we are currently carrying out to help our spaces survive, let alone thrive.

As we are not, understandably, permitted to use the hose, a small army of us walk many miles in the relative cool of the evening with watering cans and buckets to keep the young trees and fruit bushes from dying. We have alas, had to let nature take its course with the other flowers. The saddest thing was seeing all our collective hard work with the wild flower patches literally go to seed prematurely.

It’s not all doom and gloom however; the courgettes are having a lovely time, and we have had a bumper harvest. The tomatoes are giving out a small dividend, the wild rocket did well, and some of the flowers have pulled through.

Now that all the native birds that nest in our hedges have safely fledged, we can tidy the perimeter of the gardens and the hedge team have clipped away leaving a beautiful result.

The grass cutting team have had a bit of an easy cruise for many weeks now but the parched grassed areas are looking a bit brighter in places being dotted with pretty weeds bearing their own wildflowers.

Also on a positive note, as the garden was less demanding of our efforts, it meant that we had some time on our hands. We decided that the hall, now over six years old, was looking a bit tired in places so we got some scaffolding put up and washed and painted the interior walls and exterior porch area with satisfying results. The heat of the sun beat us in the end, and we will repaint the woodwork over the side doors when it is a tad cooler.

Hopefully our next update will be a lot more positive. We are now looking forward to hearing the dulcet tones of the lawnmower, the pitter patter of a generous rain fall and the sweet aroma of petrichor.