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What's loving all this rain?

LeggiLeggi Posts: 489

Yet again it's pouring down here in sunny Kent, like it seems to have been for weeks, and I'm having to potter around the forum trying to stave off boredom for a while whilst my garden and allotment disappear further under water.

It started me wondering about which plants are loving all this wet. In my little patch Foxgloves have romped away and had it not been for the wind would have been perfect, the Hydrangea (as it's name suggests) is looking the best it's done for a few years, the Verbascums have coped admirably and continued to flower regardless, two Geums (Mrs J Bradshaw and Totally Tangerine) have masses more flowers than before and the Verbena Bonariensis plants stand upright and tall like collective purple middle fingers to the grey sky above.

If we get our heads together we can work out which plants love all this rain, if not I'll meet you round the back and we can use that wood, which was supposed to be at the allotment today, to start building an ark.

What's doing well where you are?

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Posts

  • Alina WAlina W Posts: 1,445

    Foxgloves, definitely. Also campanulas, calendulas, and fuchsias. Oh, and all trees are verdant, though not necessarily fruiting.

  • figratfigrat Posts: 1,619
    Apart from the slugs...honeysuckle, hemerocallis, hardy geraniums, viticella clematis. Foxgloves terrific until they got battered in the wind. Roses have been good too. And the philadelphus. Broad beans cropping well, climbing beans are just dreadful. It is disheartening isn't it?
  • marshmellomarshmello Posts: 683

    Non of my plants are loving this rain, they have been eaten by the armies of slugs and snails. image

  • Pennine PetalPennine Petal Posts: 1,540
    My Astilbe are doing really well, never been so tall before.
  • pashpash Posts: 109

    Hi, my red leafed acers have never looked better, and my verbena bons are at least 6 foot tall with many side shoots, best they've looked in 5 years.

  • trishquintrishquin Posts: 3

    Edinburgh has had 96 mins of sun this month lots of slugs & snails plants soggy loads of couch grass garden a mess as too wet to work in it, fed upimage

  • Jean GenieJean Genie Posts: 1,724

    My carnivorous plants are loving the rain . I'm putting them out everyday and they're putting on loads of growth - 2 new traps on the venus fly trap and the others growing well . I'm bringing them in at night cos I don't trust the slugs - they seem to be eating everything . Like everyone else though the garden in general is suffering a serious lack of sun. Still no flowers on the sweetpeas but strangely the morning glory 's flowering .

  • LovetogardenLovetogarden Posts: 756

    All the shrubs and trees are doing well. I think this wet weather will have saved a lot of them. The daylilies, penstemons, hardy geraniums, foxgloves, rambler roses, in fact most of the roses except for 2 climbing roses that are slowly giving up the ghost. I think the last 2 winters were just too much for them.They are looking decidedly sick. I don't know whether to prune them hard and feed, and hope for the best next year or remove them and replant next year. Most of my perennials look good, but the annuals I use for infilling are not in full flower as yet, just the odd bloom. We have had 2 relatively dry days with some sun so perhaps that will encourage them to get a move on.

    Vegetables not so good. Potatoes are good, as are broad beans, runner beans, onions and lettuce, but the only carrots we have managed to grow are in a pot, nearly ready to harvest, we haven't any beetroot, sown it 3 times and got nowhere. Soft fruit has cropped well, blackcurrants and gooseberries especially. We are going to sow some winter/spring cabbage to see if that does any good.

    You need to be an optimist to garden, just hope for the best tomorrow, it's a new dayimage.

  • BookertooBookertoo Posts: 1,306

    Hostas, golden hop, hardy geraniums, these are all delighted with the weather - oh, and the ever spreading many varieties of oregano than have self seeded from one end of the place to the other.   Much of the rest is very unhappy about the persistent wet and dark indeed, me too. 

  • Green MagpieGreen Magpie Posts: 806

    Our lavenders are looking great, and the climbing hydrangea looks the best it's ever done - it's growing in gravel against a wall, and we clearly haven't been watering it enough. We have several little conifers growing in planters, and they're putting on more new growth than usual (again, showing us they were thirsty). A huge viburnum has put on masses of new leaf. Buddleias look happy, and honeysuckle flowers are bursting out the top of a huge holly bush in a hedge.  Gooseberries amd raspberries are prolific. The lawn is green, if soggy. A couple of our apple trees are cropping well, while others are not. Nettles flourish everywhere, which must be good for some butterflies etc.

    I will not list the miserable plants and failed crops that are not responding well to the rain, it's all too sad. But it's good to remind ourselves that some plants are having a great summer!

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