End of Month View: a Wet One!

01.10.2024 - 13:45 / ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com / Cathy

You cannot compare the wet weather we have had in the last 9 days or so with the destructive hurricanes experienced by parts of the US, but we have an amateur weather monitor here and I have kept records for over ten years, so can tell you that this is the wettest month we have had in that time, with 161mm (6.3″). To put this in perspective, our annual rainfall varies from around 24-32″, although bear in mind these are amateur records. Living on a hill, we are in no danger of flooding, but there is a river valley at the foot, with lakes from collapsed coal mining, and the road there does tend to flood after prolonged rain, necessitating a detour, but oddly this has so far been minimal, as it has been in the local town, where this first river flows into a second, larger one. What is happening both up and downstream can of course have an impact.

I put off taking photographs for this End of Month View yesterday, because of the persistent but fine rain, but today we have persistent heavy rain so it was more of a scurry than a ramble this morning, and there will not be a video this month! So let’s start, as usual, with the view from the back of the house, with the ladder used for pruning the wisteria still not put away (above), followed by the adjacent streamside and grass, seen from both directions.

The rain will certainly be reaching the woodland floor, where snowdrops, I imagine, will be beginning to put down roots in preparation for another season of glory. At the far end, you can look down from the bothy over this section of the garden.

The extension to the gallery fence in the right foreground is a recent addition, to provide an anchor for pulling the dark Magnolia ‘Susan’ away from the roses in front of it. From ground