Fiona in France

Hi...welcome to GC

 

Back to where? I'll be in France until mid-September. My husband is going back to the UK, but I'm staying here.

I must admit, though the UK garden isn't much, I'm quite worried about the survival of what little is there.

I have never seen a summer as dry as this one, though it isn't overly hot. (Is it this dry throughout the UK?) Water is expensive in Brittany, though heaven only knows why considering all the rain we usually get.

We have been watering the hedges, the fruit trees, azelias, camellias, lavande, and the hydrangias by spraying the soil until it's damp (to prevent runoff), and then putting the sprayer head at a slow run by the base of each plant and leaving it there for (about) 45 minutes to thoroughly wet the soil deep down. It's all I can do.

With low humidity it's pleasant people weather though.

 

I'm PGWE. No rain here at all. Not a drop.

At this point we need at least four days of very heavy rain before the water penetrates the soil to a depth that is useful for trees and established hedges.

The grass is dead, but as you know, the French don't worry much about their lawns, so neither do I.

My very English husband is long-faced over the dead grass. He is always long-faced over 'his' lawn. He really wants a lovely English lawn of fine grass unstead of that ugly rough stuff the French used when they planted this thing (right on top of solid clay).

 

Then we had better hire some native drummers and a Range Rover to assist us in getting to the shed.

 

Oh I thought you were coming back to the UK soon must have misread your comments, how lovely to stay until September

I understand what you mean about water as we have a property in Spain, Atlantic side, and although it does rain a fair amount it is still very dry, we drive down in September for a month as the weather is more pleasing, we are actually catching the ferry this time to Le Harve and driving from there, a change from the euro tunnel.

Hopefully your plants will do well with your watering method