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weather: june 2004

Bath weather station

Week beginning 1st June - June begins with the rain we have been waiting days for - so a damp, drizzly start. By midday on the 1st the rain has cleared, and then follows several days that are a mix of cloud and sunshine. It's generally warm, on a couple of days there is a breeze, and saturday has the best of the sunshine. By sunday it is very warm, and monday the 7th is blisteringly hot.

Week beginning 8th June - We get a sharp shower overnight on the 8th/9th, and a little more rain on the 9th during the day. Then towards the weekend there is more sun again. Sunday the 13th is hot and sunny, and this continues into the new week.

Week beginning 15th June - It really is dry now. Hardly any rain for weeks. A sunny start to the week. On the 17th it gets loads cooler, and there is thick cloud around, but no rain. The 18th is cool again, with plenty of cloud, and it rains in the north of England. Late evening and overnight we get some short but heavy showers. The 19th starts bright. We go down to Cornwall and get some heavy rain overnight on the 19th/20th, and cloud thereafter.

Week beginning 22nd June -The weather breaks with a vengeance this week. On the 22nd, heavy, often torrential rain moves in from the Atlantic. This is accompanied by gale force winds that are at their worst on wednesday the 23rd. These gradually die down, and Friday the 25th is a lovely sunny day. But on the 26th another low moves in bringing heavy rain again. Over a few days 40mm fall in Bath, possibly twice that in Cornwall, where we are holidaying. The 27th is a mix of sun and late afternoon showers. The weather improves significantly on the 28th.

Week beginning 29th June - The last couple of days of June are cool, cloudy and breezy, and on the 30th we get two or three short heavy showers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the garden diary: june 2004

rog's garden diary page - alliums This diary is simply my record of what I did in the garden and why. Maybe at the end of this year I will find it useful to read back through the diary.
I like to think I write in the spirit of the old gentlemen amateurs.
Perhaps, if I should happen to keep this going for many years (and this is very unlikely), the diary will serve some obscure function as the documentary record of how a gardening novice learned about the subject and developed his garden(s).


June 2004

Wednesday 30th June 2004 : evening

So that's June done. It began dry and hot, and for the first couple of weeks the landscape of England looked wonderful. Just as things got rather dusty and rain was a distant memory, the weather turned and we have been buffeted by storms and heavy rain. The storms have gone but it is still windy. I feel my garden needs refreshing now that the early spring surges of growth have gone. At the moment it seems that late summer might be very different form last year.

One image I will hold from our week in Cornwall is that of the walls od=f front gardebs clothed in drifts of osteospermum and they looked great. Even in the raging gale that was blowing. Next year I will use them here: they could be a great and easy way to brighten up the front garden.

Monday 28th June 2004 : evening

My frog is still there. I have doubted her twice, and each time she has returned. I mustn't fear her gone just because I can't see her little head bobbing above the surface.

One image I will hold from our week in Cornwall is that of drifts of Osteospermum at the front of so many gardens. The beds alongside the swimming pool in Hayle were clothed in them and they looked great. Even in the raging gale that was blowing. Next year I will use them here: they could be a great and easy way to brighten up the front garden.

Coming toward July and high summer, it is time for my two long borders to really come into their own. So far, my attempt at a prairie style border has had mixed success. Time to take stock this weekend and report back...

Sunday 27th June 2004 : evening

Just a week ago, before going away, I was pondering how dry the land was. How that has changed this week, as the weather finally broke. When we arrived in Cornwall last saturday I was struck by how dry it was down there: fields that had been left bare were like dust bowls. So I guess that they needed the rain even more than we did here. When the rain came it was torrential and accompanied by screaming winds that buffeted the land for about 48 hours. A couple of days of our holiday were spoiled somewhat. Apparently it was one of the deepest low pressure areas we've ever experienced in June.

We arrived back here about 4pm yesterday. I feared that the garden would have been savaged by the wind, but the actual damage was not so bad and I have spent some time today staking plants, as the wind remains fairly strong.

My rain gauge measured 39mm of rain in the period I was away. I suspect in Cornwall we had double that. The water-butt is just about full again, so I know that 39mm of rain fills one butt fed by guttering on the back of the shed. I am sure I can put this knowledge to practical use sometime.

I've spent a few enjoyable hours in the garden today after a week away there is much to do and many changes to observe. Overall the garden looks like it has enjoyed the wet week. The gourds, for example, have exploded, and I tacked some more baton onto the fence to support it. The fatsia japonica, that seems to struggle when it's hot and dry (it is in too hot a place on the terrace), looks healthier than I've ever seen it. The onions have virtually doubled in size and lettuces are close to being ready to harvest. Disappointingly, many of the sweet peas have seed pods already, and they are thin on flowers. I haven't followed all the tricks..

The frog appears to have gone, but then I thought it gone a couple of weeks ago and after a couple of days she was back. Again, I'm wondering whether the rain tempted it out of the pond and upwards and onwards to better things.

Harvested potatoes today which I've eaten tonight, along with some onions that I've eaten as salad onions (but twice the thickness of supermarket ones). Beautiful. As is the soil that the potatoes were growing in. I've sown lettuce (two varieties), rocket, coriander, sorrel.

More, later this week, about Cornwall, and being back home.

Saturday 19th June 2004 : 5.30am

In an hour or so we are driving down to Cornwall for a weeks holiday. I watered the garden last night, and then we finally had some rain, so the garden will be OK for a few days. More showers are forecast here for the next couple of days. Paul is coming in to look over the pots, feed birds, and check on the frog. I awoke early today and have just spent a lovely 20 minutes in the awakening garden.

That's it until next weekend.

Thursday 17th June 2004 : evening

I've had a very busy week at work and additional evening commitments so I just have an hour or so in the evening, and five minutes first thing in the morning to enjoy the garden. I will wander around the garden keeping the bindweed under control. In the last week mothers 'grey' plant (she transported some form her garden and had in the meantime lost of all of her own) has flowered. I don't know what the plant is: it has hairy grey-silver stems and leaves, but has produced the brightest dark red-purple flowers that are almost impossibly bright, and look slightly incongruous atop pale grey foliage. Speaking of bright flowers, the delphiniums I grew form seed last year are in flower now, in the gaudiest blue I have ever seen. Tonight I have come home to see the coreopsis in flower for the first time. Yesterday, it was the gourds, that have grown maniacally, and now have huge, yellow flowers.

The motif of June though, is the dryness. I cannot recall a time in England when the land was , beneath the tremendous growth of late spring and early summer, was quite so parched. It is only the second week of June and the lawn is yellowing. Paths are baked concrete hard, and their is a dusty sheen over all areas sparsely vegetated. We have days - like today - when the sky is covered in dark cloud all day, but it will not rain. Sometimes there is the odd drop and the sky really darkens, but still the rain will not fall. It feels now like it will never rain and you just have to accept it.

I put the hose on the garden on Sunday and drenched it. I felt a bit guilty about it, but then, I reuse washing up water and I try to collect my own so I've done my bit. (And everyone is wasting water, but that is not the point). My challenge for next year is to get a system in place to collect enough water over winter to last the summer: not easy in a smallish house, and almost impossible when you hit drought. But worth trying nonetheless.

Other happenings: I have harvested some early potatoes - just one portion, nothing amazing. I am going to cook them after I finish writing this. I've had handfuls of lovely, lush strawberries. Sweet peas continue to flower. My echinacea is 'slow': I hope it springs to life in July.

Saturday 11th June 2004 : morning

It has become decidedly cooler these last few days, we've had a couple of short showers, and first thing this morning it was almost 'cold', with a stiff breeze taking the edge of any warmth. My frog is back, or rather, it never went away. I saw it again last night, and this morning it she is back in her usual position, head just out of the water.

The last week has been more of the same: the garden grows, more flowers emerge, strawberries redden and ripen, the lawn becomes increasingly yellowed and, despite the odd shower, cracks in barer patches of the lawn and borders widen. My wigwam of sweet peas are now a mass of flowers: this week the ones I bought in have been showing red and pink and white flowers. Delphiniums are in blue flower now; lupins just beginning to show; verbena bonoriensis, planted from seed last year, have the tiniest spots of purple atop lengthening stems; irises, that we planted last year but never flowered, have done so this year. In fact one of the obvious, but satisfying, characteristics about the garden, is how that plants are so much stronger now in their second year. Another example is an achillea: this grew strongly last year, yet this year is is five foot high in places and may need some controlling. It all reiterates how all this is an organic, gradual process: we can do so much to influence the garden, but nature is stronger.

Last week I wrote that I thought the bamboo in the pot in front of the house was suffering; looks like I spoke too soon: whilst it has shed some leaves, this week five new, green, arrow like shoots have emerged. The two longest are now about four foot long.

Memo to self: next year, plant more nictoniana.

Thursday 9th June 2004 : evening

Just as parts of the garden were really wilting through heat and dryness, we had a heavy shower overnight on tuesday. It awoke me about 4am, and I lay awake for a while imagining the garden drinking this nectar. I haven't seen the frog for a couple of days, and I wonder whether it took the opportunity to move on whilst their was dampness around?

Monday 7th June 2004 : evening

It has been the most blisteringly hot day today. When I arrived home around 5.30, the patio was a cauldron of heat. It wasn't until about seven o'clock that the air started to cool a little. I've said it before, but the evening really is the most glorious part of the day at the moment. The first thing to do this evening was to check on the frog. For the first time since I discovered it, it had moved: it was sat on one of the rocks. Inspired by watching Bill Oddie on BBC2, I've just been reading the BBC nature web site, and it looks like the frog might have turned up to breed or lay eggs. In which the frog must be a 'she'. I hope she is not too lonely in my small pond. I put some branches around the pond to provide some more shade, and put more logs and stones around it, should the frog want to get out and needs some shelter.

In the spirit of looking after my wildlife, I have put out something different for the birds to find in the morning: what will they make of rice and peaches?

Sunday 6th June 2004 : morning

England in June
In the last few days I have had to make a couple of trips out of Bath. On Thursday I went to Henton, five miles out of Wells, to visit my grandmother. Yesterday I had to pick up mum and dad from Bristol Airport and drive them to Wells. On both trips I was struck by how beautiful the English countryside is. At this time of year - and I think England is at it's best now - there can be no finer site in the whole world. After such a warm May, Mondays' rain followed by more warmth and sun has created another spurt of growth.

Last night I took the 'scenic' route to Bristol Airport, via Corston, Compton Dando and Chew Magna, rather than the easier but far more prosaic route via the Brislington and the built up fringes of Bristol. The hedgerows were high and lush, and spattered with cow parsley and the occasional foxglove. Along the quieter lanes birds were skimming and sailing. Through Chew Magna, a cricket match was taking place; as I slowly drove past a spectator was retrieving the ball from a hedgerow. For a few moments I was part of a John Betjeman poem. From Bristol Airport we drove back to Wells via Burrington Combe and Priddy. The grey clouds that masked the sky earlier in the day had by now cleared away, leaving behind a still and lustrous dusk. The whole scene was - and I know this is all awfully sentimental - wonderful.

The land is starting to look dry again, and we really could do with some rain. Personally I think England looks better when it is green and fertile: it doesn't quite look right when the fields are parched into shades of yellow and brown. Patches of my garden that are sheltered from rain and that have had no artificial watering are hard and cracking open. I bought a couple of bags of bark to use as a mulch - should have done this weeks ago. I watered my small patch by the front lawn in which I've planted cosmos and asters, then mulched it. I want to see if it can thrive virtually untouched. I did the same with my 'woodland' strip of ferns and foxgloves et al. I bought a big and expensive bamboo - phyllostachys nigra earlier this year, that sits in a big pot in front of the house. Every few days it looks a bit sorry for itself and I soak it, usually with used washing up water. I wonder whether it is really worth trying to look after plants that require so much watering, and obviously a bamboo in a pot is hardly 'native'. I wanted something to mask the drabness of our house front, but wonder whether I ought to have found another solution.

the pond... ..has a frog! I saw him for the first time yesterday, and this morning he is still there , virtually unmoved. How did he get here? Think it is a frog, not a toad. I made sure he could get out of the pond by putting in a branch that acts as like a ramp out of the water. I am amazed and surprised that we have a frog so soon, and in what is, after all, a very small pond. I hope the pond is not too small for him, but then, if it was, why did he choose to stay there in the first place?