Cottage garden style in a heatwave – collapse!
Have you got an August garden full of billowing shrubs and flowering perennials? Are your borders a riot of colour from all the high summer plants you’ve carefully chosen? Mine isn’t. My front garden that faces south is a parched dust bowl with great gaps of hard baked soil.
My Twitter feed is awash with people’s blooming gardens and I’m feeling a bit deflated.
Where did all that April and May frothiness go?
Front garden looking lovely in May and June
When I cut back all the hardy geraniums that were brown, crisp and shrivelled, I found there was nothing else there. The plants that I’d tucked in through May/June hadn’t settled and had died still in their pot shape.
Strangely though this has prompted me to have a good rethink. In my last blog I described my beds and borders as an airy froth. Well the problem with that is that when the froth collapses in summer heat it looks rubbish and can’t be re-frothed. It’s a burst bubble.
The joy of hardy geraniums is that they grow from a base the size of a saucer but spread out to cover a huge circle about 4ft in diameter. If, as I do, you have lots planted together, that is what creates the wonderful wild, casual, airy look.
Can the cottage garden style survive a heatwave?
I now don’t think my favourite style can sustain itself without risking a total collapse in mid summer every year. If I had cut things back when they first looked sad in early July, there would be lovely fresh green regrowth by now, more able to withstand the heat and worth watering. There’s no point in watering plants that have brown crispy leaves and no flowers!
Planting looking wonderful in June
In July I couldn’t bear to lose any flower colour and now I’m paying the price. It takes such confidence in one’s experience to shear longed-for growth back to ground level in early summer in order to have new growth by the end of August to last into Autumn.
Would a dry garden work here?
I read about a dry garden on themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk and thought that might be the answer. Listening to the detail though it wouldn’t work here. My soil is clay but with 30 years of compost gradually added and so is fabulous soil but even this has dried out like it’s a desert. A gravel garden has gaps and I read that a dry garden is very high maintenance in the weeding department as weeds love gravel gardens. Definitely not for me.
Watering
Of course I water pots and containers throughout the year.
yellow ceramic pots are cottage garden style
But I don’t think watering beds and borders every time it’s hot can possibly be sustainable. I hear nearby sprinklers on day and night squirting droplets into the air in the vain hope of getting water to the roots of ailing shrubs.
Even the expected heavy rain won’t solve the problem long term of having a wonderful spring garden and an empty summer one. I’m wistfully remembering how fabulous it has looked in previous years with all the autumn flowering plants giving the golden red colours, heleniums, crocosmia, grasses, daisies, thistles, etc. Those came and went. Where do all these plants go? Anyone know??
My only hope now for autumn is that fresh green covers every inch of soil and stays that way through winter till I cut it all back again in February. I know that my alchemilla, epimediums, geraniums and herbs will regrow very quickly but I am on a quest now to find more substantial plants to plant in late autumn. Hopefully these will be well settled by next spring.
If you have this problem too this year, stick with me as I find out what I need to plant to avoid a repeat next year. There has to be a way.
If you’d like to follow me..
If you like tips and ideas for the cottage garden style you might like to follow me by email. My blogs, about one a month, will pop into your inbox. Just put your email into the box at the top of the page.
Fantastic article Julie. This is a huge problem I feel. My own tactic is not to overdo Geraniums that need cutting back, include some suoerlong flowerers, avoid annuals for sure and use gap filling opportunists like Hordeum to quickly colonise any bare soil. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing about your discoveries.
Oooh Sarah thanks so much for your comment. Yes of course I must must must tame my addiction to hardy geraniums – good idea. Def no annuals. I’ve never heard to Hordeum so will look it up. I am hoping for heavy rain but wondering if it will just run off the soil crust. Better get out there are fork it over. There’s a fabulous book out – The Modern Cottage Garden by Greg Loades which is the best book I’ve bought in ages.
I shall see what he says about this.
I also find it really hard to do the Chelsea chop, so I’ve been compromising with my biggest and most abundant hardy geraniums – I chop about half of the plant, usually the centre which flowers first, leaving the outer ring to continue to maturity while the centre regenerates. Or I chop one and leave the one next to it intact. This compromise has worked really well for the past couple of years, ensuring flowers throughout the summer.
This is a very helpful idea. Do you even do that with the blue ones, Brookside, Orion, rozanne? I will try that next year. Funnily enough I do just that with my sedums and that works brilliantly. thanks for your comment, nice to know we are all struggling with the chopping. It can feel brutal but it can also feel very therapeutic.
Ahh I totally agree Julie.
I too have some very bare patches here and there this summer. I have decided to plant
a couple of japanese anemones and persicaria to fill in a messy looking patch next year where other plants have died back.I don’t know how you feel about persicaria? I know they can take over, but I wouldn’t be without them now and the bees love them.
Look forward to hearing how you get on and what you choose.
You are not alone in your quest!
Lucy Saxon
Sheffield
Thanks Lucy, good to hear I’m not the only one. I dug up all my anemones earlier this year because they had thuggishly taken over a whole bed and smothered everything. I think I will look out for some less invasive ones – you’re right they are so very tough. I do know persicaria but I am reluctant to add anything that might over spread. the veronicastrum have been wonderful, tall like persicaria, and are a bee magnet. I am happy to keep those (even though they are over now too!). Thanks for your comment.
Oh I understand. While my ‘garden’ hasn’t been a lush as yours the heat has taken it tole.
Hi Beverly, yes it’s not only the heat either, I think it’s the blinding brightness of the light level. It’s scorching and life sapping. I am so waiting for the rain!
What about supplementing with dahlias and grasses? They can work with a cottage style, and you could plant the dahlias out when you cut back the spring growth?
Grasses are a great suggestion, Thankyou. I have some and they are thriving! I’m afraid dahlias are doomed, totally doomed in this garden. They get eaten to a stump within hours and actually I don’t even like them. I do admire other people’s successes with them though.
What an honest post – I’m sure many of us have exactly the same problem. This sustained fierce tropical heat is just hard to accept – but I for one shall certainly be watching out for what your research comes up with. Endless watering is a thankless task and so a change is I guess essential . Thanks
Thankyou! Research? oh I’d better get onto it then! I wouldn’t mind if the watering staying on the plants tho. Mostly it runs straight off the dry crusty soil onto the path. There’s always next year – that’s the mantra of gardeners.
I live in Berkshire, not too far from London and we’re having the same horrendous weather. I garden on heavy clay and this year decided to grow some annual grasses. Panicum Sparkling Fountain, mixed in with Achillea and they have done fabulously well. I wish I could figure out how to post a photo for you. But they are still going strong after three months.
That’s really helpful Sylvia, I will look up that grass. I do have some achillea doing well in the back garden that is a bit more shaded. If you tell me they do well in hot sun then I will definitely try them in the front for next year. I am getting so many great suggestions I am glad I wrote the blog. Thankyou for your comment. Good luck with your garden and let’s hope it rains soon.
I live miles away in NZ, but I have clay soil with compost and we have a mix of blazingly hot weather, wind, and sometimes humid rainy weather in summer. My most reliable plants for all weathers are rosemary and lavender of all sorts, and shrubby salvias. Most of them flower here at the end of Winter/early Spring so are very good for bees as well.
How lovely to har from you from so far away. Rosemary sounds a good idea. By shrubby salvias do you mean the small scented leaved Mexican ones? I have a lot from William Dyson’s spcialist nursery and some are doing really well you’re right. I will give them the space they need. Thanks for the tip.
Great post!
I have nursery pots of sedum “autumn joy” divided up in the spring from established plantings in my garden. I Chelsea Chop them to keep them sturdy. In the dog days of summer I tuck them in where needed, often just burying them in the pots, so I can lift out when done.
Thanks so much Steve for that suggestion. I agree that sedums do so well , I have a few clumps and cut them back quite hard to make them less floppy. I will lift and divide som bits to do as you suggest. What a great idea.
So devastating when all the hard work in the garden doesn’t work out as planned, all this extreme weather plays havoc to our cared for plants.
I live on the south west coast of Scotland, and I find the heavy rain is rather detrimental to many of the plants here.
As for summer colour, have you tried hydrangeas that like the full sun? There are so many varieties about to choose from, and they require very little maintenance.
Wishing you more success next year.
Best wishes Pat.
Thankyou Pat, I will certainly take a look at them for next year – I haven’t grown them before as it’s such a small garden but totally open to changes. Yes heavy rain can destroy things too. I’m expecting thunder very soon here in North London. Very best wishes and I imagine you live in a beautiful part of the country.
Hello! Just ran across your blog as I am researching Cottage Garden blogs with the intent of changing my current method of sharing my Cottage Garden with others in the form of a blog. Might I suggest the following for August/September in your garden next year? You would start these from seed in May dependent upon your gardening zone. They grow fast and like heat and full sun. Zinnias, Cosmos, Nicotiana, Rudbeckia (Sahara, Chim Chiminee) Statice, Gomphrena, Amaranthe and so many more. There is no getting away from watering unless you go with more of a desert theme in the garden. I water most of it by hand in the early morning or evening. Some of the garden is on a drip system which is heaven. I hope to get the rest on a drip in the near future. “Pee Gee” hydrangeas love full sun but must have water. My favorites are Limelight, Pinky Winky and Vanilla Strawberry. I hope this helps. I don’t know where I would be without my late summer annuals for color!