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Extremes of Gardening

1634 Racine1634 Racine Posts: 568
in Problem solving
Not quite sure how to do this anymore.  How do you make a garden that can survive both cold, saturated clay in winter and then a spring/summer of consistent 30 degree heat and hardly a drop of rain

Look at my persicaria.  Always such a consistent performer and beloved of insects.  Beautiful red flowers against the deep green foliage.  Now reduced to a crispy mess.  I refuse to water the borders save for an odd bucket of grey water now and again

The garden looks like its been 10 rounds with Tyson (Mike or Fury) at the moment


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Posts

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I think we're all suffering in parts of the country.
    Only the weeds are thriving

    You could try one of these-


    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • 1634 Racine1634 Racine Posts: 568
    @Pete.8 I would be all up for creating a dry garden to cope with these types of summer
    but by February it will be 2 feet underwater again 🤿 
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    Maybe this then-


    Sorry - I'm not being very helpful 🙃
    It must be the heat...

    Hopefully someone will have some sensible answers for you, but a lot of my garden is suffwering too atm. Not a drop of rain in weeks.

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • BijdezeeBijdezee Posts: 1,484
    Improve the clay with lots of garden compost and /or well rotted manure. You need to get as much humus in there as you can. It will open up the clay and help the roots to breathe in the winter and hold the moisture in the summer. 
  • micearguersmicearguers Posts: 646
    For what it's worth, my persicaria is not quite that crispy, but generally a while after flowering it starts to look very manky for me, and I find that cutting the old growth back helps new foliage developing. Yours might benefit from another bucket of grey water too, hopefully there's still life in it.

    I'm on quite clayy soil too, and have added a lot of mulch; initially bark mulch that I bought (a good number of bulk bags over the years), now also mulch from an impact shredder, it has the effect that @Bijdezee describes - as well as compost.

    The climate is changing. Last summer was very dry, this summer is actually a bit better with thunderstorms after the heat waves. I will water once things get very bad (about three times this year so far). The rule is that I accept no outliers, so a plant that starts to wilt a week before the majority has to go. I'm creating more shade with drought-tolerant trees, and generally the garden is acquiring more of a meditarranean planting style (the fig trees doing particularly well). After that it will be desert plants I'm afraid. Well I have ignored the wet winters you mentioned ... luckily my garden is a stony chalky clay that drains quite well.

  • 1634 Racine1634 Racine Posts: 568
    Thanks for the responses. I was getting a bit of frustration out earlier but the point is that this year has been so extreme (in more ways than one!).  The winter was one of the wettest I remember and now this heatwave (and the earlier heatwave in April) is just ridiculous.  Even the thunderstorms seem to have passed me by and so I haven’t had that good drenching

    Im actually gardening on the edge of woodland which means I get a decent bit of shade in morning and evening.  But I actually think it might also be part of the problem.  In Winter the rain gets through fine but in summer a lot of my garden is in the rain shadow of the tree canopies.  I guess those trees are also competing like mad for whatever water there might be underground.

    Good points on soil improvement and mulching.  I do have some way to go on that.  I think a few lorry loads of bark chips would go down well next spring.  I’ve also been looking at Strulch which really interests me
  • sam bevingtonsam bevington Posts: 130

    I invested in a pallet of Strulch; laid the first bag on Wednesday in the Rockery which has quite a slope. Very impressed with both the look and the ease of use. Far better than bark and so light. Was a bit concerned after the epic storm, rainfall of Noah proportions during the night, that it might have washed off the bank - no problem, it was exactly as I had left it. Great product. 
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    I'm sympathetic, because I share those conditions, but I don't have any answers. My garden is waterlogged all winter because rain cascades down the hill from the fields and downs, both overground and in underground springs, emerging in the garden. We often have areas of standing water. In summer, recently, we have had severe drought: just a drop of rain since March. It doesn't matter how much you improve your soil or how many water butts you buy, without rain your plants will suffer. Mulching is good for plants but it cannot help with these problems, I'm afraid.
    The answer? I have considered giving up, too, but I think hoping for better times is all I can do at present.
  • ButtercupdaysButtercupdays Posts: 4,546
    I have been cursing too, though more sunshine and warmth are potentially welcome in an area where summers have hitherto often been cool and wet. For me it wasn't just the change, but the timing that wreaked the damage. If April and May had followed the usual cool,damp trajectory, then a hot summer to follow would have been less damaging.
    But it is potentially more possible for me to manage and futureproof because  I have a large garden with a number of different areas offering different conditions, so there are always some plants that are relatively happy to give consolation. It must be much harder when you only have a small space to work on as  you need more areas to be able to multi-task. 
    I know that my 'sunny' border needs more work, but sun hasn't usually been the major player in the past! The shady and boggy areas have coped much better, though that has brought other problems as my Darmera, which I have had for years with no problem, now has to be removed from the boggy dell, as it has run rampant and is impossible to control in a place you can often only enter in wellies and sometimes not even then!
    I am aiming to increase water storage capacity: even more water butts, dredge the ponds to increase depth and I want to further exploit the strengths of each area to get the most out of them come what may. There are beautiful plants for all kinds of terrains and many that would once not have grown here may become possible, so I want to extend my knowledge and expand my plant list :)
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    It's been an extreme year, you say the Persicaria is usually a consistent performer; I'd say going yellow in these conditions is not a disaster. You could move it to a spot where the ground stays damper or has a little more afternoon shade, and next year it will probably look a bit better.

    I notice the Eupatorium is doing better. Have a look and see what is doing well and plant more of that. 

    If you want to grow more drought tolerant plants which resent winter wet, you will have to create some gravel beds over the top of your existing soil.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
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