Storm Hannah

Hello Friends!

Sometimes the weather throws us a real curved ball, and as some of you are aware, indeed some of you may have felt the impact, of Storm Hannah as she barrelled in from the Atlantic Ocean this past weekend and wrecked havoc with winds of over 80mph across parts of Wales and England for over a day and a night.

We see big storms often, in fact we are seeing them more and more than we ever used to, and we are, in a weird way, starting to get used to them.  I don't plant out much in the way of vegetables or tender annuals until well into May now to prevent having to start again.  Usually, the hardy annuals in the garden survive, maybe a little battered and bruised, but nothing too severe.

However, Storm Hannah did her worst and when I looked out at my garden on Sunday morning, while Hannah still rampaged about, I found, with heavy heart, that I had many pots overturned, including one big 100 litre pot with a fir tree completely out of the pot. That was bizarre, as only the day before I had moved it to a sheltered corner, so to find it upturned and spilled was annoying.

Roses, hydrangea, aquilegia, my prized pasque flower, a copper beech to name but a few horribly blackened and burned to a point that I don't know if they will recover this year.  Neighbours are all showing the same signs, some worse than others. One neighbour is distraught as she specialises in roses and does not have a single good leaf on any of her many established and prized shrubs.

Here's some of the damage:

My dwarf camellia, which had been doing incredibly well and I was looking forward to a spectacular display, but it is shrivelled and burned. Some of the buds look okay, so we shall see.

I can hardly look at my much loved pasque flower without crying. Yes, a few of the shorter stems survive, but anything that had already bloomed is gone, the stems cruelly snapped in two.

The same goes for every aquilegia in the garden

A close up of the copper beech leaves. Overall the tree looks black and the leaves hang ready to drop.

Roses are like this all over the garden, some green survives, so there is hope.

The same for the hydrangea

And my poor fir tree, it just isn't getting a break at all.

Mostly the damage is blackened and burned leaves {mostly roses and hydrangea} and the broken and snapped stems of aquilegia and my precious pasque flower, and upturned pots. Others have suffered uprooted trees and broken branches, fence damage, and such.  We've all had to wash our windows too, for they were mightily dirty with plenty of gritty deposits carried in on the salt laden winds!

I hope your garden survived!

Until next time ~~~
Deborah xo