it's a scorcher

Today was the hottest July day ever recorded, according to the radio.  This kind of weather is conventionally described as glorious, so it seems ungrateful to admit that I don't like it particularly. But I don't.  Days are for doing things, and my list of things to do stretches some time into 2017 at a conservative estimate.  Weather like this slows progress down to a crawl.  The Systems Administrator explained that at these temperatures I was not supposed to do things, just sit down and look at it all or read a book.  As we have never taken a single beach holiday in our thirty-three years together, and the SA was busy mixing buckets of concrete for the garden railway, I decided it was a case of do as I do, not as I say, and went on weeding.  But it was too hot and I didn't honestly get much done.

I have been chopping the spent flowering stems off the Euphorbia characias in the gravel garden. By this stage they have gone brown, not in an architectural way, and detract from the overall picture. Although they will eventually die now that they've flowered, they are still sappy and drip milky white latex like juices from their cut ends.  It is important not to get any splashes on your skin, since it is an irritant capable of raising blisters, and worse still can leave the skin sensitive to sunlight for several years.  My gardening garb includes full length sleeves and trousers whatever the weather, the only concessions being to add layers when it's cold, and switch to a cropped vest instead of a camisole when it's hot, but even with long sleeves I was jolly careful handling the euphorbia.

When I worked at the plant centre the notion of uniform aertex shirts was once floated.  I stated flatly that I was not working outdoors in a short sleeved shirt, and the idea fizzled out.  Apart from the fact that a tan line stopping abruptly half way down your upper arms is not a good look, when you are touching plants all day and reaching across them to get to the ones behind, you never know which might cause a reaction.  I've never had any problems with hyacinths, despite the standard garden centre advice to wear gloves while handling the bulbs, but got some unpleasant burns while cutting back Dregea sinensis, another species with milky sap.  In the garden I am respectful when it comes to chopping down Aconitum napellus, which is supposed to be incredibly toxic, but I don't worry about it.  I might if we had the sort of puppy that chews everything.

The patch of the long bed I watered a couple of days ago is looking happier, the Campanula alliariifolia no longer wilting at death's door.  This is a useful filler, tough as old boots though not to the point of surviving with no water at all, with white flowers, mid green hairy heart shaped leaves, and the useful ability to grow in part shade and dry places.  It seeds itself moderately generously, but the seedlings transplant well and are handy for furnishing gaps between shrubs.  I resumed operations with the hose, resuscitating a patch of asters and a dwarf double flowered Prunus glandulosa.  Actually I am not sure if it supposed to be that dwarf, or if it just finds life in the long bed a struggle.  The flowers are a delight in the spring, and it normally trundles along quite happily even if it doesn't grow very fast, but it has hated this dry spell.

The olive tree in the turning circle, on the other hand, loves the heat and sunshine.  After being badly hit by the two successive cold winters I think it is finally larger then when we bought it. Originally I imagined it growing in a large pot, but that idea was rapidly abandoned as it never managed to get its roots out into the surrounding compost due to wind rock.  There was no way of stabilising it, and we ended up planting it in the ground.  That probably saved its life, as I'd never have managed to move the pot into the greenhouse, and if left outside with freezing roots I'm sure it would have succumbed to the harsh winters of 2011-12 and 2012-13.  As it was the branches were badly hit, and by the time I'd pruned all the dead wood out it was reduced to about a quarter of its original size, but the trunk remained, and this year it's going splendidly.  North east Essex is finally managing to do a convincing impression of an Italian hillside, and the olive loves it.