Continuing to fight the elements

Further gloomy weather is set to blight the British Isles, with little prospect of sun on the horizon. Showers, prolonged periods of rain and thunder is the forecast once again, causing floods and havoc for travellers, and Canna enthusiasts.

Over a week ago I tempted fate, and stated how good our young seedlings were this year. There was obviously a pixie hiding nearby and he organised my comeuppance. For nearly two weeks we have hardly seen any sun, just overcast with clouds and rain for hours and hours every day. Not just rain, it was cold rain.

Many of the young seedlings do not have a sufficient root system this early in their young lives to handle this, and deterioration and stress has set in. I have been forced to move a third of the seedlings back into the poly tunnel for safety, and here they can dry out again and start some new unaffected growth.

Growing Cannas means that you become more aware of the weather than most other people because of the "perfect" requirement for 5-6 hours of sunshine each day, so the Cannas starch producing engine can pump material created in the giant leaves down to the roots to form rhizomes.

But now it looks like all the remaining seedlings will need moving back indoors as well, as the weather division of the Press Association, have just said that the soaking the country has received in the past week is unusual for June, as are the temperatures - expected to drop to 13-16C across the country on Sunday, and expect up to 10cm of rain in the next 36 hours; that is a normal months worth of rain in 36 hours! And some people still say there's nothing wrong?

"13-16C is quite cold for June but will be a feature of the next few days," he said. And there's no sign of the summer returning any time soon.

"Tuesday is looking like it might be a brighter day," he said. "But if you're looking for hot, dry, sunny weather, there's not much prospect of it for a while."