Calling all West Midlands Gardeners

Yviestevie

Hi folks, I garden just outside Dudley in the West Midlands.  I was wondering what plants were doing well for other West Mids gardeners in the challenging weather this year.  On another thread some have said that roses are doing well.  Mine are awful.  Crispy petals in the heat and lots of black spot.  They have also gone over quickly this year.
The clematis are doing well though.
I'd be interested to know what others have experienced.

Nel_Staffs

Hi @Yviestevie. I'm in South Staffordshire, about a 20 minute drive from Ashwood Nurseries. Back garden faces south. My roses, which are in two borders, all have dreadful black spot, but the blooms have generally been OK. I've deadheaded frequently and there are signs of new buds. A potted rose on the patio  has been much less affected by black spot. Ferns in the shade have crisped up. Lots of powdery mildew on honeysuckle, so much so that I've cut it back to almost ground level. Clematis in the same border is fine. 
 

NoSlugsPlease

Hello from Shropshire. The sedums are doing well. Others which don't seem to have suffered any damage so far - hardy geraniums, penstemons, lavatera, evening primrose (probably only watered them once all summer), alchemilla mollis, helianthemum (other than the stems touching the gravel drive) and erigeron.

Nel_Staffs

Sedums here are fine too, as are penstemons. Festuca glauca are doing well. 😊

debs64

Hi, I am very near you @Yviestevie, Halesowen to be precise. My roses are the worst they have ever been for black spot. Clematis are thriving though and my honeysuckles were cut back early June as very mildewed but now doing well. 

I am thinking of giving up on hanging baskets next year as the constant watering is getting too much. 

On the plus side I am growing melons in my new greenhouse and I have several small fruits! 

cooldoc

Hi all.. I am in Dudley.. I do spray my roses.. so cannot comment on the disease.. but they did great for me with regular feeding, watering and deadheading.. Not sure which varieties you have, but can go for modern ones which are 'relatively' disease resistant..

Honeysuckle is still in bloom.. started in May.. I tried deadheading and liquid feeding for them as well.. wild seeds did extremely well and happy with the bees on them.. 

Mine is a small garden and most of them in pots.. in my experience, if you have the time to deadhead and feed regularly then everything will be happy.. even the cheap supermarket purchases (Delphiniums) did well..

Others are lily, Sunflowers, Pelargonium, Salvia, Foxglove, Dianthus, Marigold, Achilea.. Now I don't plant masses of them.. 

GardenerSuze

Sorry but I am in the east midlands! @cooldoc has just mentioned how well the garden has done. I have worked in a very small garden in the past and you can be very precise in how you care for plants. Watering is not such a problem for one thing. It is easy to keep an eye on plants on a daily basis. I was able to keep everything to a high standard and because it was too small for a lawn front or back it looked good for most of the year.
 

Topbird

@Yviestevie - I wonder if the W Midlands had a wet spring or perhaps some really wet days in May? Residual moisture followed by heat are ideal conditions for fungal diseases like black spot.

As you know, in Mid-Suffolk we had a dry winter, a dry spring and now a very dry and hot summer. The only fungal disease I've encountered this year is powdery mildew on Knautia Macedonica (but they always seem to get it!).

Last year was a relatively wet summer (for us) but interspersed with some very warm spells. The roses had black spot, the box had blight and the apple and quince had scab.

Just a thought...

GardenerSuze

@Topbird It is interesting you mention box blight, do you think there has been less  because of the dry weather? I have mildew on a small Amelanchier that was planted end of February. Also aphids on a few things early on but that has now gone as leaves have matured. Less ants in the lawn too.

Topbird

@GardenerSuze - sorry I don't know about the box blight. I had 40m hedge which always suffered with blight when it was wet and warm and 5 box balls which have never had it.

Last year the hedge looked pretty awful (yet again!) after the blight and then it was attacked for the first time by the box caterpillar and looked even worse. I decided  then that enough was enough and removed the whole hedge last autumn. The box balls are still there and (so far) are fine - but they always were.

I suspect the hedge would have fared much better this year.

Yviestevie

Hi folks, thanks for all your input.  I have a small garden so it's not that I haven't been able to keep on top of it, although I didn't give it as much attention as I should have in the Autumn.  I did spray very early in the season before any insect life gets going and I was so fed up with the black spot that I gave it a second spray at dusk on a very cloudy day when there was no wind.  The usual suspects have had mildew, verbascum, aquilegia etc but it's not been noticeably worse than other years.  I've been in the garden this morning and gathered lots of leaves that have fallen from the trees due to lack of rain.  The roses have had a feed of FBB in Feb and a top up of David Austin rose food in June.  I also manured them at the start of the season.