Well, up to the last few days in the month, October was much warmer and drier than normal in Coolwater Garden and the plants took full advantage of it. (Plants are real chancers. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile, whether in spreading or flowering.)

I strayed into the ordinary and put in a few herbaceous perennials this summer. OK, OK, I know, I hear you saying “That’s not Coolwater style.”  but a garden has to keep changing and evolving and those plants rewarded by putting on a fabulous show all up to the end of October.

The cover picture is of sunrise in Coolwater; the following pic is of one of the Lewisias, all of which seem unable to stop flowering nearly all year. I may put in another Lewisia rockery bed over the winter as they perform so strongly.

Below are Rosa roulettis, miniature roses planted in wall pots, followed by an ordinary size rose, which is also a strong performer most of the year.

And then finally, these, sourced from a little, old lady, whose garden was being inundated with them.

Reminiscent of 1976, we had no rain in Coolwater all month up to the evening of the 26th and the garden suffered because it was a physical impossibility to water all of it properly in one day, even with our garden hydrodare system. By the time one got back to the beginning, the soil was bone dry again, a downside to having so many troughs and pots around. We estimate we lost about 30 plants including a lot of alpine saxifrages, which were burnt with the heat. Plants in the Water Garden had no such problem, though. 🙂

Luckily for our Japanese maples, these canopies proved their worth, keeping the trees in shade for much of the day.

We’re looking for garden volunteers, so if anyone loves plants and has a few hours to spare, you’d be welcome here in Coolwater.

June this year was as good as the winter months were bad. Temperatures soared. We reached 31°C in the shade. The downside was that we had no rain to speak of in Coolwater. We received a 3 minute token sprinkle one day but it had evaporated 5 minutes later. They had rain a mile to the north  and rain a mile to the south of us but the Gods in the sky must have been holding an invisible umbrella over us here.

Big cracks in the ground have appeared and some trees, like Drimys winterii, have dropped their leaves. It’s physically impossible timewise to water every part of the garden. We try to prioritize all the troughs and pots as they dry up completely within a day.

We’ve had a particularly good display this year from our double-headed Yucca linearis.

Our two resident moorhens had two chicks; each following a parent around at the moment. Very hard to get a close-up of them as the parents are nervous; the chicks less so. This is a pic of one of the chicks standing on a water lily leaf.

Everything was far behind in the month of May because of our cold, wet Spring. Normally the first water lily flower pops its head above the water on the 1st of May. Not so this year; the first one didn’t surface until the 21st. The flowering cherries were also three weeks behind, in tune with everything else in the garden.

New bamboo design steel panels were installed in both gardens in order to help contain rampant Phormium leaves. (Picture was taken on a misty morning.)

Pictures above are of the Japanese Maple bed, one of the troughs of Mini Rhododendrons, a Forget-me-not from Turkey and flowers among the flagstones.

Yes, April was a frustrating month with the seemingly constant cold, wet and wind setting the garden back by an estimated three weeks.

Hopefully May will soon make up lost ground and everything will be back to normal. The garden has probably lost about twenty plants due to the bad winter but often, what you just think is dead miraculously sprouts again after a while. Time will tell. Here’s a few pics of what’s flowering at the moment.

However, these tulips in two pots made their appearance before tulips elsewhere. No explanation!

In the early part of March, we had quite a bit of snow, although it only lasted for four days here. The month on the whole, though, was 2°C colder than an average March.

I busied myself for a time, making this “Greek bust” out of plastic, plaster of Paris, expanding foam and concrete.

Not sure where I’ll put him but he might replace the Buddha, which is slowly but surely disintegrating in the Water Garden. The first picture shows him with an initial cement wash and the second with a further coat of roof tiling coloured concrete.

Crocus were a lovely sight in the first half of the month but now in the second half, Saxifrages are stealing the show.

Frog spawn, which normally appears on the south side of the Water Garden has this year appeared on the west bank, maybe pushed there by all those bitterly cold easterly winds.

I acquired this pot recently from a skip and it is now the proud curator of a Hutchinsia.

Other pots I’d acquired last year from skips have, sadly, succumbed to the bad frosts we’ve had this winter: in fact the worst winter since 2010 and quite a few plants have been lost as well. 🙁

On Saturday, the 24th of February, a contingent of hardy garden visitors braved the freezing weather to go on a Walk & Talk in Coolwater.

Starting with hot soup and sandwiches in the kitchen; this was the view of the Watergarden from the kitchen window.

Then bravely wrapped up in winter clothing, we started the tour. Gradually I could see some white noses turn red and then eventually blue. 🙂 This monkey out in the garden wasn’t relishing the cold weather either.

After the tour, we all returned to the warmth of the kitchen for coffee, tea, cake and the non-drivers had welcome glasses of port to warm themselves up. Despite the bitter cold, everyone seemed to enjoy their tour.