My biggest disappointment was the weather. In the Midwestern United States, we had the hottest and driest summer on record since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Municipalities requested a reduction in water use in the garden to prevent a mandated rationing, so lots of plants and grass withered or burned. Several established shrubs and trees will have to be replaced, unfortunately.

What was your biggest disappointment?

Funnily enough, the same as you, the weather, but the opposite, in that we had so much rain! Bedding plants were standing in water and many of my begonias just rotted away. Perrenials even gave up in the wet and cold and I lost two acers I had for years. On top of that, mud. Mud everywhere, especially on my dogs, which meant I even had it in the house!

My biggest disappointment last year was also the weather but for exactly the opposite reason, we had far too much rain, and not very warm at times, maybe this year it will be our turn for some hot weather, we can live in hope, {or die in despair, lol}, Derek.

My tomatoes, all that rain! had 4 tomatoes instead of about 4 kilos. Roll on spring, I'll try again.

Same as you,Weedpatch..rotting Begonias .and poor Roses...but despite all the rain,all the shrubs did very well,with the extra moisture at the roots.

My biggest disappointment was me.! Being quite new to gardening I looked at all your lovely pictures and believed I to could have a garden like that (immediately of course) WRONG. Still I am learning and given time,weather and a reasonable level of fitness, things can only get better.No good dwelling :0)

Strangely enough, I had the a lot of the disappointments that each of you suffered. Jenfren, I was upset that for much of the year I was below par, and didn't do nearly as much in the garden as I wanted to, so yes, disappointed in me. Ivy clad, we had one of the hottest, driest, most damaging summers ever, and lost a lot as a result. We also had one of the severest winters ever, so lost a lot of plants then, too. Then, as for wet, not nearly as bad as the UK, you poor souls, but we did have two days of unbelievably torrential rain in early summer, which washed so much topsoil away from the garden, plants were left with their roots exposed, and lots were washed down the mountain, too. All the bad weather resulted in wild animals coming into the garden and uprooting and eating a lot of my most precious, imported plants that I have nurturing and propagating for years.
BIGGEST disappointment? That I still have a lovely garden in beautiful surroundings, and am never satisfied! Oh yes, and in the fact that for the 4th year I have tried growing runner beans, and have yet to get a single bean off them. :o(

weather and when it finally faired up a bit I was ill and unable to do any gardening?

It has to be the weather for me too, and have not done any gardening at all.

Well actually it was some fuchsias I'd sent for by mail order, and when they bloomed, they were not the ones I had ordered :o((
I was going to complain about it, but ever got round to it.

Slugs ate my new chrysanthemum completely, all my brassicas got eaten and I was to ill to do any of my autumn moving stuff around. But hey, spring bulbs are appearing!

Almost all my runner beans were eaten by slugs, which thrived in the wet. I did get a few, but not nearly as many as usual. I kept replanting and replanting, because the shoots were scoffed almost as soon as I set them out. Better luck this year, I hope!

Seems like where ever we live, the weather, no matter which way it goes, is our greatest disappointment!

We had such a dry winter last year that they were talking of hose pipe bans, so I went for plants that like it dry, so I was worse off for trying to be crafty when it turned out to be such a wet summer.

Gattina, my heart goes out to you. I think you had the worst of it. I do empathise completely with your Biggest disappointment though. I am just the same, why? I think I'll ask that as a separate question.

I have a plaque in my garden that says 'Hope never dies in a true gardeners heart.' I have it there to remind me that I can try again next year every time I get disappointed fed up and I am trying to teach myself to view plant deaths caused by our crazy weather as a space full of promise because I can try something new. (Not easy!)

A gardener HAS to be an optimist. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Mine was the weather, started off with a hose pipe ban in the early spring and bought 2 water butts, it has not stopped raining since!

so it was all your fault Drc :o))))))

PLEASE, don't buy ant more water butts Drc, lol, Derek.

I think we should throw that trouble-maker Denise off the site - she has obviously single-handedly wrecked the weather patterns in the UK! :o)))) Could you buy a sun-bed instead this year, please?

Ha ha you may laugh but it ended the hose pipe ban very quickly.

As with everyone else the wet cold weather, I got tomatoes and peppers in the gh, but no flavour, even if it was dry there was rarely any sun so no sweet tomatoes.....the Supermarkets tasted better, how awful is that!

Yes the bad weather put paid to our runner beans, hardly any to speak of, and the tomatoes....I ended pitting lots of green ones in the GH to ripen, but the skins were tough. I had quite a few late flowers on the Cosmos, but they grew so tall, some 6ft and plenty of buds which never opened......let's hope this year will be much kinder....:))

It is snowing heavily here now, so doesn't look like it is going to be kind at all!

My shallots. I grew a great many shallots from 30 sets the year before last, used half of them and reset the rest this year. Not one of them came up. No more shallots for me.

We have woken to a light covering Weedpatch, roads ok though at the moment, you are a bit further north than me and I hope its not too bad with you

We have 10" here. It snowed all yesterday, and the power went at about 11 o'clock last night. Just got it back (intermittently) now, so rushing round doing everything we can.

Sorry to hear you are having power problems. That adds a whole new dimension to the hassle of snow if it is out for long. Let's hope it stays on now. I don't envy you 10'' of snow. I only have three or four inches but have just had to abhort a very scary attemp at getting my car to a main road. I live up a very narrow lane with steep hills up and down in both directions and to be honest I lost my nerve after a very nasty zig zag episode ending in a very nice man pushing me to a place to turn so that I could come home. Not going out there again!!!!!

Oh, Weedpatch! That sounds scary! We have similar sounding situation - we're quite used to just not trying. We have lovely neighbours with tractors, but we're hoping not to have to call them this year!
It was quite sunny first thing, and rather beautiful, but the mist has descended now, and it's started snowing again! I've just posted a couple of photographs.