After a string of dry years, this spring and summer were the driest yet. And although we didn’t have the record high temperatures seen a few years ago, it was still hot, with more sunshine than we’re used to, and drying winds that stressed plants further still.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’m gardening on thin, free-draining, sandy soil, which loses its moisture very quickly. So which plants failed to cope with these exceptional (or perhaps, no longer exceptional) conditions?

1. Viburnum (Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum ‘Mariesii)
   This is a glorious shrub, with fresh green leaves, a tiered branching habit, and branches smothered in clusters of bright, white flowers in late spring. Under normal conditions it’s dense and bushy, filling a large space. This year, by early August it had shrunk back, lost quite a few of its leaves, and those that remained hung down limply.

2. Phlox
This is Phlox ‘Peacock White’. Phlox prefer moist soil, so it’s no surprise this struggled, as it has done most years. You can see it’s trying to flower, but the flowers didn’t come to much.

3. Clerodendron trichotomum
A slightly rare shrub with white flowers and very striking berries, this too should have been full and lush. Shortly after I took this photo it went into early dormancy – we’ll have to see whether it comes back to life next spring.

4. Corylus maxima ‘purpurea’
A vigorous (normally!) large shrub with large, dark leaves. By early summer it was obviously suffering. This year it hardly put on any growth, and looked sick from early summer onwards.

5. Ligularia
Ligularia dentata ‘Midnight Lady’. This too is a moisture loving perennial. I planted it by the pond, in a bed with a pond liner beneath, to create a bog garden. Unfortunately the pond all but dried up, and the pierced liner beneath these plants couldn’t hold onto the moisture. The ligularias did eventually produce some flowers, but they didn’t hold up. The leaves would be expected to be large and lush.

This is what it should look like (as you can see, slugs and snails love the big leaves)…

6. Hydrangea (H. paniculata ‘Limelight’)
I have one large plant, and a few smaller ones, struck as cuttings. Hydrangeas are not known for their drought tolerance either, so perhaps not such a good choice. Having said that, planted in shade, it has been reasonably resilient. Until this year, at least. This photo too was taken in August.

7. Cornus kousa
A large shrub/small tree, grown largely for its showy white flowers (which are actually bracts – the flowers are tiny) followed by strawberry-like berries. Last year it only produced a handful of flowers. This year there were none, and the plant sulked from shortly after the buds broke. I’m wondering if there’s more to this than a lack of water. We do have honey fungus in the garden, so it could be this cornus is under attack.

8. Persicaria ‘Purple Fantasy’
Oh Dear! No amount of watering was going to save this rather vulnerable perennial. It puts up shoots early, which tend to need protection from the frost (unfortunately I didn’t get around to fleecing it). It’s first shoots were hit by frost. It sent out new shoots, but they too were killed off, by a late frost. It recovered again, but by August, despite attempts to keep them watered, all of the plants had shrivelled and died.
On the plus side, I split up some of the clumps and replanted them in shade, and with the wet autumn they put out some new growth, so there’s hope for next year. Here is one I moved (taken yesterday).

9. Aconitum
The flowers were poor, and the foliage withered before the flowers had finished. The late flowering ‘Carmichaelii’ varieties weren’t much better either.

10. Roses.
I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth continuing to grow the traditional bush varieties in an open border. Rosa ‘Wollerton Old Hall’, a climber planted against a north-facing wall, did okay, as did Rosa ‘Clare Austen’ (planted against a shed, again facing north). ‘Dame Judi Dench’ (pictured), ‘Munstead Wood’, ‘Tuscany Superb’, and even ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ were sick specimens this year. On a pergola, ‘Constance Spry’ and ‘Lady of the Lake’ fared little better.

The flash of red behind gives a clue to the plants that coped well with the dry season.

In the summer, we did as much watering as we could. The four water butts ran out early on. I’ve been holding off, but I think it might be time to re-evaluate my planting plan. The problem is, of course, that if we switch to plants that like a Mediterranean climate, and then we get a few cooler, drier summers (because despite climate change, these things do go in cycles), we could find ourselves with the reverse of what we have now. I.e.; plants curling up and dying because it’s too wet and cloudy. Ideally we need plants that will cope with wet or dry, hot and cold – if such plants exist (actually, I think they do).

In my next post, I’ll highlight the plants that came through the drought unscathed…