By Somhairle
Renfrewshire,
Scotland 
Anyone else feeling a bit dispirited in the garden just now?
It seems like one thing after another nowadays. The weather is too dry or too wet. The pests are more resilient and abundant. And the growing media and aids are no longer available.
Here in the west of Scotland you do not expect drought to be a problem, but the dry springs now seem to be a real issue. It is a few years now since I last remember a spring that was not sunny and dry. This year, I cannot remember when our weather was 'wet'. Apart from the odd day of showers, it must be back in March? We now face water restrictions in the next few days or weeks. In the west of Scotland???? Come on, that is just not real.
Trying to keep pots, baskets and the garden watered is becoming a real issue. With cloudless skies and little shelter, the garden plants are suffering badly. Baskets, tubs and young plants in pots simply dry out in these days of peat free compost. It seems this morning that I have lost a hanging basket which was only recently planted up simply because the compost dries out so fast and does not hold water when topping it up. Not to mention the fact that I am not meant to be wasting water on it anyway!
I have young agapanthus and meconopsis plants grown from seed last year which now seem stunted and no longer developing. They would probably do better in the ground, despite their lack of size, if it were damp than in the pots containing compost that refuses to stay moist even in dappled shade. Out of around 12 meconopsis plantlets, I have lost at least 4 in the past 2 weeks trying to find suitable conditions for them to not only thrive in but to simply survive.
And pests! Nothing takes care of them unless you develop guerilla tactics and hunt for them like some small game fanatic.
It simply seems just now that things are more disappointment than pleasure in the garden. So much changing in what we can and cannot use in and around the garden. The climate and what plants can survive. It is all like a new learning experience at times.
And all this before the weather takes another turn for the worse as we are now set for a spell of even higher temps and humidity.
10 Jun, 2023
Answers
Watching everything dry up and die is no fun. We have more aphids than I have ever seen before and not a predator in sight. And now the Solomon's Seal
leaf eating things are back.
Ah well, at least the dry weather does mean we have been able to go walking every day.
Chins up.
10 Jun, 2023
Thanks, folks.
I suppose it is not stressing me so much as puzzling me how to make the correct decisions on what is best for the plants and the garden considering the changes that are occuring. It is frustrating. Very frustrating.
In vine weevils, out of interest, I never really found anything particularly successful. Even out in the dark, which at this time of year up here is sometime 2 months away (!!!!), did not prove very successful. I did drench roots but the weevils still did their damage. I have a rather nice rhodie which is eaten completely with them and I am thinking now of cutting it down hard to remove the damaged leaves. They have been there for a few years now and the bush is pretty unsightly.
I still enjoy the garden and won't stop doing what I am doing. But after so many years I just find that what I knew and practiced no longer works as it did. :(
10 Jun, 2023
Quote: ''Our successes can make us cleaver but only our failures make us wise''. Just imagine how most of us would have had to deal with Lockdown if we didn't have our gardens. The beauty of gardening is that if some of our efforts fail, then there is always next year to succeed. It's often is the reason to get up in the morning and get out there to nurture our gardens and have to adopt different practices to deal with what Mother Nature does. I have found that my biggest change has to be fewer plants in containers and baskets as they cause too much watering, feeding and fending off the vine weevils. So it's back to the soil for me with plenty of alpines!
11 Jun, 2023
Jimmy, it is a coincidence that only last night I was saying this to my wife that we will need to reduce the number of plants we place into containers as the compost no longer supports them.
As for the soil, I have literally just finished digging 4 bags of compost into a rose bed. Soaking the bed first, I thought that would be adequate. However, when I spread the compost and began to fork it in, I discovered that the water was not penetrating to soil. our clay soil is so dry just now, it sems that evaporation takes place before penetration. It was a tough. tough job. And all the while I was thinking that this was not the time to deal with dry clay soil.
Hopefully it will not be a complete waste of time.
12 Jun, 2023
I have given up, the garden can die. Not going to replace anything that does not survive and welcome the bare patches of soil.
12 Jun, 2023
I have felt a bit down. The soil in my garden is really awful (I moved here in January) it’s full of stones and bits of brick and a lot of old weed cover fabric so I’m having to grow lots of stuff some in pots that I’ve brought from my old garden and some in new pots. So the dry conditions have meant so much watering
I know I’ll have to do a lot of work in the autumn but for now I’ve just bought a packet of wild flower seeds and scattered them to try to get some colour
13 Jun, 2023
Sunbeam. I feel your pain!
Yesterday I decided to mulch a rose bed and found it more of a challenge than I expected. I mentioned this above.
Our soil is clay and despite adding compost and manure to some areas of the garde over the years, it still seems heavy and dries out very badly.
I have buried some small clay pots next to some more tender young plants and filled these with water hoping they will act as ollas. Time will tell and I admit that it is a degree of desperation.
I have taken to watering my front garden late in the evening since it is the only time when the sun has cleared most of the garden. It does help, but to be honest it is making maintenance a round the clock thing.
Very, very challenging. And........ any day now I am sure we will be told we cannot use hoses, or even simply water, on the garden.
Good luck on clearing your garden in the autumn. Just don't start it too early before conditions are right. It may make the task a little simpler.
13 Jun, 2023
Here is south west Wales we haven't had rain since the beginning of May, and even then it was just showery. This is unusual for spring here.
Summers can be dry and hot sometimes but springs are usually cool and rainy.
I have had to water some plants in the ground already but never had to do it in May before. Even weeds are not growing, it is so dry.
I never have hanging baskets - too much faff watering them, and they always dry out quickly, every year here.
Weeds - I just pull them up but leave some pretty ones like Herb Robert and Ox eye Daisies in corners, for the insects, and they look pretty :)
I can't say I get many pests, only thrips, and they get squirted with bug killer (only on the thrips)
and vine weevil but they get watered with systemic vine weevil killer.
Other pests are not very troublesome.
I still enjoy the garden, I don't let it stress me, and I don't make it become a chore. It is the way it is.
10 Jun, 2023