In this most unusual year, I have seen many unusual things.

Cold weather lasted well into the spring, and my Neighborhood Garden in the front yard near the street was so stressed to start the growing season that many of the roses out there were very late to break dormancy.

When they did, their growth seemed stunted for about five weeks. Now, in the end of August, they are the size of normal rose bushes in June.

Usually, by this time of year, most of them are much taller. Unusual, but I’m glad they seem to be recovering! If we have a normal winter this year, they should be back up to snuff next spring.

Unusual Late Blooming Hydrangeas

Our cold weather lasted for seven months, right through the month of May. I have two gorgeous Nikko Blue Hydrangeas flanking the porch steps on the north side of the house. They have been there for 14 years, and I always play lazy gardener with those plants for the winter. They have years worth of ‘leaf mulch’ underneath them; my neighbor’s oak leaves skitter in the north wind in the fall and a big pile of them always winds up under my Nikkos. Those leaves have always been enough for their winter protection, but not this past winter!

Normally, these beautiful hydrangeas are covered with huge, sky-blue mopheads starting in the beginning of June. They need two-year wood to bloom on, though, and this year, the canes died back so far that I haven’t had a single bloom this summer. Now, it is the end of August, and when I checked the Nikkos the other day, I noticed that they are setting buds. Maybe we will have a few beautiful blooms, after all!

I guess this just goes to show me that just when I figured I had seen almost everything out in the garden, Nature will jump in and prove me wrong! It has been a most pleasant summer temperature-wise. We usually have very hot summers here in Connecticut, but June was temperate, July only gave us a few 90 degree days, and the dog days of August forgot to show up! It’s been feeling very fallish around here the last few weeks. I swear, the air is different! It is so crystal-clear that the color of the blooming roses just pops! Our roses love cooler weather, and the blossoms are taking on much more color as the days get shorter and the sun is lower in the sky.

Don’t Stop Watering Roses

We are still waiting for a good soaking; we haven’t had a decent rainfall in a couple of weeks. Make sure you keep watering because we still have weeks of more bloom to come. (Fertilizing also helps.) If you spray your roses, it isn’t time to quit, yet!

With warm days and cool nights filled with dew, fungus will find your garden while you sleep unless the plants are protected by a systemic fungicide. Here, the Japanese Beetles are gone for the most part, but now the Cucumber Beetles are chewing on our blooms…dumb beetles! Didn’t anyone ever tell them that cucumbers aren’t roses???

Take some time every day to enjoy the deeper colors and fragrances in the coming Fall display! My favorite meteorologist has written in his blog that it looks like we will have a small El Nino this coming winter. If that’s true, it will be a warmer winter than last year with more snowfall. That would make my husband and me very happy! Not to mention our grandchildren…and our roses!