Summer come and gone

Gale-force winds and torrential rain battered Britain over the weekend – as summer seems to have been and gone.

But there is worse to come as ­forecasters predict it will carry on raining until August – with no warm weather for weeks.

In the meantime, the Cannas look no better than last year, some good leaves and some imperfect leaves. We had some higher than average temperatures in late June and early July, but they were accompanied by cloud and rain. Now what we really want is some direct sunlight to kick-start the Canna starch making machine.

A hundred years ago Cannas were grown in England as stove plants, which means that they grown in heated green houses. In the last three years of the twenty years that we have grown Cannas we have not had good results, but before that we had many good years.

The severity of the weather we are now experiencing, compared with the gentle drizzle of the traditional English summer is the obvious cause, perhaps we have to revert to growing them protected by glass or poly tunnels throughout the year?