"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from madgardener contains these words:

Good Evening, garden friends across the pond. Madgardener or "Maddie"
here. I had a question after hearing something out of the corner of my
ear this morning during the starting madness of my day. Is anyone
seeing some disturbing trends in the warmer than usual weather over your
way?

Yes. We had a late cold spring, and are now having a late hot dry
summer. But a very weird one; we had a winter-style gale a few weeks ago
which stopped the feries running (unheard of in midsummer) and the
mainland had night frosts forecast in July! Scotland is not (quite) as
hot as S England atm, and although we're having a (rare) dry spell there
is no shortage of water.
It has been a particularly good year for birds nesting in the garden; at
the moment we have four teenage blackbirds, three teenage thrushes and
three teenage pied wagtails and a crazed teenage crow, all running about
shrieking to be fed by their overworked parents. They are all as big as
their parents and can fly perfectly well. Because I put a lot of mulches
on the soil, it's a good hunting ground for them.

Plantwise it has been an odd year. my runner beans have flatly
refused to go up their poles and are now stunted things flowering in a
heap at the bottom. They are Painted Lady, which has a distinctive red
and white flower; otherwise I'd think I got the wrong seeds! I have
never had runner beans behave like that before. All the other beans and
peas have also been poor and the courgettes and squash are also just
sitting their with no flowers. OTOH it's been a great year for potatoes.
On the plant front my Japanese ensata irises have flowered wonderfully
and so have the hemerocallis. I only have one japanese anemone and it's
showing no signs of flowering yet.


My green beans/french beans/haricots verts did the same as your runner beans
for a while but I put it down to the grim cold in May when I planted them
(too early I know; next year I will be more patient; we get impatient in
Ireland as frosts often stop by early may near coasts which they did but it
still had not warmed up much). I spent ages trying to twist them up the
poles. Then it warmed up and off they went.
My courgettes did the same as yours also; we are only getting them now and
one plant (from 2) is still sulking and both look very spindly.
Des in Dublin