Yeah, what is this? Our AC has been running for a week with temps up around 90 and 92. Yesterday I think the heat really did me in while I was de-budding and de-blooming the front garden and putting out alfalfa - even with Gatorade I felt sick all evening. We had a couple of 'summer' downpours this afternoon. If I had been out an hour earlier, the rain would have begun the decomposition process for me.

I'm so happy that you're sitting down more and merely admiring.

I'll say it in case "lovely (huge) daughter" hasn't......Gee, thanks, Ma!

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

The weather is topsy-turvy since we're sitting inside with sweaters on and it's cool and gloomy outside, with rain threatening. I've completely given up trying to predict what it's going to do, and am just hugely thankful that I don't live in Tornado Alley.

Suzy, it sounds as though your garden is taking shape nicely and I hope you keep on with the sitting and relaxing (maybe soon with grandchild in lap?), although I can't imagine you without the faffing and fiddling. Just remember to put the baby down before you jump up to remove that pesky weed under the rose bush.

Ingrid

Are we living on a different planet? Cold here, lots of rain, roses barely pushing out first budded leaves.

Campanula, tell the UK weathermakers to make it cold for a while. Will be there to see Mottisfont, Sissinghurst etcetera on June 20 or so, and would like to see petals still on the roses.

Carol

Chilly here in Sacramento. You can have the heat, though - I am perfectly happy with a long, slow bloom and a chilly spring. I was amazed at the size of roses such as Archduke Charles and Crepuscule when I came to England last year, and wondered if it was the rootstocks vs own root, or just climate and rainfall. I guess it was the latter, because the flowers in my yard are about 50% bigger this year, almost as big as I saw in the UK - and I didn't fertilize at all, it's just rainfall and cooler weather doing the trick.

Our cemetery open garden last weekend went very well, but the bloom is still not at peak. The temps have been ten degrees F lower than usual.

Yes, we do seem to be on different planets!

Glad you are having some time to sit and enjoy your garden, Suzy - with lovely (huge) daughter. Enjoy the lack of rampageousness while you've got it.
Anita

It's been a hot droughty April here, much to our dismay. We get that kind of weather when summer comes; we don't need it during the spring, when plants are supposed to grow on a mixture of abundant water and light. I certainly hope it rains before too long. We have a lot of trees and shrubs planted in late winter and spring, too. Oh, boo, hiss. At least, the worst that can happen is that everything dies. Then we replant.
Established trees and shrubs are fine, in spite of the gaping cracks in the ground. I've never seen a faster and more complete switch from flood to drought.
Melissa

It's been unseasonably warm here too for a couple of weeks but the drought is normal for spring, I am sorry to say. I am glad it will be cooler next week both here and in East Anglia in time for my visit to London and Norwich on Wednesday. I have watered the garden all day but hopefully, it will be cooler while I'm away. My daughter will not have time to water anything but houseplants, potted roses and seed trays. Besides, I hope it will not be uncomfortably hot for sightseeing and garden visiting.

One can get a lot of work done in cool weather. Here hot weather means hiding in the shade until the sun is low. But your are right: no good can come of it.

Perhaps the heat is the result of all the breathlessly overheated "journalists" (I use that term with hesitation) endlessly panting over the "Royal Wedding". Is anyone interested in the royal wedding beyond the "journalists"? (Besides the Royals themselves, of course.)

Well, hoov, I know one lady, who is British, who works with me, who has taken the day off so she can watch the show, I mean the wedding, at one o'clock in the morning. I don't know of anyone else. I'm going to watch long enough to see what the (painfully thin) bride is wearing. Sorry, that much I have to see.

Ingrid

My husband and I had forgotten the royal wedding on the 29th, two days after our arrival in London. We will take the train to Norwich at once as planned because after settling in and renting a car I want to use my RHS membership to get free admission to East Ruston Old Vicarage, valid for April only, and then go to the Norfolk Auricula Day in West Acre on the 30th. So I really have no time for a royal wedding but I wouldn't mind watching parts of it in some local pub.

I think many people, British and foreign, are interested in the wedding but perhaps not as many as the journalists and the tourist boards think. I read that 32% of the Brits are not going to watch. We had no problem finding a hotel room in London for the last two days of our stay so if there will be huge crowds they probably won't stay long in London after the event.

oh great choices, Marianne. East Ruston is a theartrical extravaganza - with reassuringly tatty bits too and auriculas...sigh - who can fail to love these? Mine are just going over after a fantastic month of fragrant bloom. At one time, I actually had an auricula theatre but they live in huge pots so I can ignore the offsets for years. They always look ghastly, most of the winter and I always think 'this is it, the end of them (the vine weevils, yah know) but then by February, they suddenly perk up looking lush.
Yeah, the wedding - well, we are staunch republicans in my house (diff.meaning in the UK though, I can assure you.) If grandchild still not here, daughter is off to one of many anti-wedding street parties. Secretly hoping for a Mayday delivery (an old socialist never gives up), Labour Day, Beltane,International Workers Day - go girl. The infant's name is going to be Rosa (Luxembourg, Parks)and I have promised to breed her very own rose!! Knitting needles on fire (yep, another great thing to do in the garden). Cheers.Suzy

We are republicans in my house too, I was raised one from infancy by my communist mother. Father was more timid politically and voted Social Democrat and he blamed her for the conservative take over in 1976. Now my husband and I sometimes vote green. Our daughter is still a communist and we were the envy of all our friends when at age 19 she made the opening Mayday speech before the then leader of the Swedish communist party.

Since our Swedish royal wedding last year when the crown princess married her personal trainer, after eight years of grooming him to be more princely, more people than ever are becoming republicans over here as well.

My husband is looking over my shoulder, laughing and says you must be a very nice person.