It’s spring in London!

The last couple of days has done wonders for my garden, it’s like the whole thing has been hung up to dry - and it has helped immensely that it hasn’t rained for a few days. The flower beds are no longer making swish-swashing sounds when I dare to step into them and the pots no longer drip when I lift them. I even had to water the large hanging basket with my tender fuchsias, now renamed evergreen fuchsia! All the fuchsias have started to grow like mad and I am not quite sure what to do with them, normal rules has to go out the window, I have never had evergreen fuchsias before, things like pinching out the new shoots....ehh, how do I do that?

February in my garden

The news is repeating itself to such a degree that it makes us kind of numb – I don’t think I can hear about any more storms and floods and yet, every day the news is filled with it and every week we are hit by more storms and floods somewhere in UK. Wednesday was dubbed ‘Wild Wednesday’ by the media and the winds reached hurricane force certain places on the west coast of England. Here in the calmer corner of South East England we are more worried about flooding and the saturated rivers, and where on earth all the water is supposed to go eventually. It all leads down to the Thames River, and that river goes straight through London. The Thames barrier is currently saving London from being flooded and since it was built in 1982, the Thames Barrier has been raised 150 times in order to prevent flooding in central London. This year's wet winter has required it to be closed 28 times since December the 6, accounting for 18.7 % of the total closures in its 32-year history. And the forecast today is for ANOTHER month of this weather.

Cooped up indoors

The relentless rain and stormy weather is continuing here in Britain, we are well into the third winter month and the third month of the same pattern of days and days of rain and wind with the odd single day of clear and sunshine. For me here in London, this winter has mostly meant a very mild winter. I have not suffered any flooding like many people have done here in the south. But my garden is so saturated with water that I am wondering if everything will survive or if bulbs and herbaceous plants has started to rot. Every time I lift up one of my several hundred pots and containers in my garden, a flood of water runs out of the bottom. It feels strange after having worried about getting enough water to my garden last summer when we had such a long spell of warm weather. It seems a rather long time ago now, but it is only 7 months ago.

Wordless Wednesday

Pruning my roses - the last rose of the season.

Sink or swim!

About 2 years ago I wrote a post about ‘the troublesome corner’ in my garden. I told the story about how I had tried for years to make things grow in that bottom right corner and that a combination of dry shade, cats and foxes jumping over the fence and foxes digging a tunnel under the fence through to next door garden made that corner a real challenge. You can read that post here to get the rest of the details.

January’s GBBD flowers

Despite having had one winter storm after the other the last 4 weeks, and now having quite cold weather for the last 5 days, my garden is bang on schedule and is completely normal-mid-January in terms of plants and flowers. I just had a look at my GBBD post for January 2013 and 2012 and my garden look so similar that I could easily have used the same photos today – except that I have done changes and added plants since then. Last year the cold weather didn’t arrive until end of January, and stayed on for what felt like forever. I am hoping for a more normal spring this year!

Great expectations

It has been unusual weather in the northern hemisphere for the last month, whilst parts of America is experiencing very cold temperatures, here in Britain we have had one winter storm after the other with relentless rain, wind and subsequent flooding. Info from the MetOffice shows that it was the windiest December on records since 1969, the warmest December since 1988 and the south and south-east, and also the far north were much wetter than average with over twice the average rainfall in some places. 8 people have died so far as a result of flooding and the bad weather. Whilst rain, wind and flooding have made havoc and disaster for many people up and down the country, my garden has survived well and not experienced any major damage so far.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy New Year – welcome spring 2014!