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?

Mediterranean weather this summer?

BRITAIN is being warned to prepare for a potential heat wave this summer, with weather more akin to the Mediterranean than northern Europe.

The Met Office published its long-range summer forecast last month and they predicted temperatures could soar as high as 30C and above and that this summer could be drier than usual.

Canna will survive in drought conditions without much water, as we have witnessed in Australia over the last few years, but it will be so enjoyable to be able to have our Cannas prospering under good light and with adequate water, especially after the last two miserable summers we have endured.

Anyone growing tropical and sub-tropical plants should think about their future watering arrangements.

Our Canna collection will be watered by a series of interconnecting porous hose pipes, laid carefully around the Cannas, and which will ensure that no water is wasted at all.

The hundreds of new seedlings are always grown in pots, so we cannot make use of porous pipes, but we have a micro watering system that uses drip feeders in each pot. We start each pot with a basic drip feeder, and then adjust them higher or lower depending on the plants requirements, i.e. a tall, large leaved plant will require more water than a small Crozy Group cultivar.

The water for the system is supplied from a 700 litre water tank, which harvests water from roofs, and means that even if we get a hosepipe ban we can keep the Cannas well watered.

What is for sure is that we will see some hose pipe bans this summer in the UK, and anyone living in an area where that is possible should make plans for how they will cope with that eventuality.