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surprises/disappointments of 2020

A bit post year end, but home schooling for grandchild...

disappointments first and out of the way!
Globe thistle. Used to do so well until about 3 years ago. One year seemed to be eaten by slugs! another year the leaves became twisted and deformed and about a foot tall. 2020 they looked normal but just didn't grow tall. They are maybe 15 years+, perhaps they are just exhausted. I didn't used to give them any attention but did feed them well 2020.

Ever reliable calendula except last year they had what I think is  mildew, which they often get a bit but this year some became stunted  and poor.

Nasturtium didn't do so well here in pot, in contrast to the surpise of the other two.

Canary creeper: came up but just died off or slug eaten.

morning glory: why do I bother, had one modest success ten years ago

Beans. I give up on these, I just can't keep the snails off. tried in a pot this year;tthings going well with a battery snail fence, but the pot kept blowing over so I wired it to the fence which made a bridge of the wire or maybe too close such that they stretched across.

Surprises. the red nasturtium self seeded and the yellow to. We came back from a week's holiday first week of August and the yellow with few flowers had started to look great.

the bearded irises came after 3 years.

The geums in first year did the whole summer long.

the californian poppy self seeded and just kept going and going.
But the positives hugely outweigh the disapponintments

Posts

  • PerkiPerki Posts: 2,527
    Garden looking nice berarde . Can't think of much but my Cobaea didn't really flower and my geranium Ann folkland went into over drive flowering nonstop but swamping its neighbours but to their detrimental  . My hemorcallis finally flowered I were going to get rid but I can't do it now.   frost got my spuds so they didn't crop as well. 
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    The weather . I thought we couldn't have a serious drought for the third year in a row. WRONG. It was the worst yet.
  • My disappointments were mainly edibles or lack of anything edible!
    My aubergines were no-bergines, not a single one
    My two, yes only two, peppers were eaten by slugs
    I also struggled, unusually, to get any decent coriander or parsley
    The squirrels ate every one of our walnuts and hazelnuts (am not sure I can claim this as a disappointment as it happens every year)

    Successes - our mini meadow of poppies and sunflowers was lovely and the display lasted much longer than hoped for or expected
    We had our best year yet (year 4 here) for roses
    I created our new herb garden, which I’m delighted with despite the annual herb failures
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    Courgettes. I decided that I didn't like them that much😕 They grew ok in containers but I composted them in the end.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • My big surprise was the fact that, for the first time in three or four years, the mice/slugs/snails did not manage to eat all my hellebore buds to the ground, so I am finally getting a crop of flowers. (The less happy surprise was my deck collapsing, and lockdown means I can't get it fixed!)
  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    Some of my vegetables were disappointing - the cauliflowers had loose curds not worth harvesting, the leeks were barely passable and I am still waiting for the sprouting broccoli to do some sprouting. All the rest I was pleased with, very pleased, so the biggest disappointment was almost no visitors to share it with.

    My biggest surprise was to witness the petunia Red Velour climb to 6’. It did this by hoisting itself up an adjacent callicarpa shrub and the trade off was a very poor display of berries. I can live with that.
    Rutland, England
  • Major disappointment for me was having a rowan tree blow over in August, onto my runner beans and sugar peas - and then discovering that it had been weakened by honey fungus.

    Biggest delights were having so much time to spend in this new garden, and finding a lot of shrubs and trees resistant to honey fungus, some of which I've never tried growing before...
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
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