The Great British Summer - The New Normal
It was with relief that I left the Italian cultural hotspot (literally) of Milan on Monday. Don’t get me wrong, the Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II were absolutely amazing but sightseeing in 38 degrees C was not for the faint-hearted, and I was looking forward to returning to the relative cool of our British summer. No chance of that!
The fierce heat and complete lack of any substantial rainfall seems set to continue and us gardeners, just like our gardens, are wilting under conditions that we’re simply not used to in our little corner of northern Europe. Calling my south-facing courtyard a Mediterranean Garden is, technically, still correct although more North African than Neopolitan … the bright reds of canna lilies and leafy palms are more reminiscent of a Moroccan riad than an Italianate villa. Even my carefully chosen sun lovers like bougainvillea “Pedro”, fig and lemon trees, and homegrown avocados are drooping and demand twice-daily watering. I see them from my kitchen every morning and every evening where each wilting stalk or shrinking leaf spurs me yet again into hosepipe action.
Of course the cloud of constant watering has a silver lining. The buzzing of hundreds of bees and fluttering of butterflies on my “Sussex” lavender surrounding the courtyard has been truly restorative … and who’d have predicted an absence of slugs on the dahlias!
I am being rewarded for my hosepipe diligence with a bumper crop of figs, ripening doughnut peaches, juicy red grapes, and endless cherry tomatoes (“Veranda Red”) thriving in the herb patch along with very healthy bushy rosemary, thyme and basil plants. In fact, I have too much basil and there’s only so much you can put in the freezer; sadly the hens aren’t interested in helping me out. I even have some fledging lemons appearing on my lemon trees, which were an exciting find, but will no doubt be the cause of further gardener angst in case I mess up and either over- or under-water and watch the budding lemons either rot or shrivel up and fall to the floor. It would be a celebratory gin and tonic indeed if I were to pop in a wedge from a lemon I’d grown myself!
Cheers to the new normal!
12th August 2025