Awful August!

It's news which will come as little surprise to anyone in the UK caught in a downpour during recent weeks. According to forecasters Britain is on course for the wettest August since 1912.

Some parts of the country are expected to see more than double the average rainfall for the month. The wettest August was recorded 96 years ago when 193mm fell on the country, compared to the overall average for the month of 58mm.

Forecasters said heavy rain would continue to fall throughout the week and would also be accompanied by gusty winds and cooler temperatures. The miserable prediction for what has been dubbed 'awful August' comes after a weekend deluge wreaked havoc across large parts of Northern Ireland. Rivers burst their banks, mud slides blocked roads, flood waters submerged properties, and dozens of residents were left stranded in their homes.

Met Office forecaster Kevin Hogg said: 'It's certainly a good deal wetter than the average August. 'A lot of places have already had the average August rainfall and we are only halfway through the month. 'Some places might see as much as twice the amount of rain they would normally expect. 'It's definitely going to be a wetter than average August and it could be the wettest on record.' He said the weather would not improve in the coming days with yet more rain and wind buffering the country.

'It's going to be another unsettled week,' he added. 'We are going to see more rain and it's going to be heavy in places. Most of the UK will be wetter than average. 'We are going to see spells of rain pretty much every day in some shape or form. 'Nowhere is going to escape. It's going to be a mess.'

Figures on rainfall for the month of August will not be known until September. In the meantime, we just wring our hands helplessly. We have so many of our stock plants producing terrible foliage, which we believe is down to the lack of light during these overcast, rainy periods. Only weeks ago they were producing good quality foliage, and now so much is showing foliage features that we would normally associate with Canna virus!

We will not know until we get a period of 4-6 weeks of steady dry weather with a reasonable amount of sunlight. It does not look like we will get that this year, and we will wander into a second year without knowing the true health of our Collection.

This year, at Claines Canna, we are establishing which specimens we think are healthy, and they will go on sale in November. Last year we were just devastated by what the weather did to our plants, and such considerations were not given priority.