Long House Plants Newsletter 2026
Thank you to everyone who came to the nursery or to Open Garden days last year. It did seem rather unfair that in such a dry year we had 2 open days when it was very wet and one day with showers! We raised about £7600 in all. We sent £3500 to the National Garden Scheme, which included an early ‘pop up’ open garden in March. Again this was very weather dependent, so I kept looking at the weather maps, picked a day and hoped that they were right! It wasn’t a sunny day but it was dry and not too cold. We had over 80 visitors. The Camellias did not let us down. There were slightly different refreshments, we used paper cups and cakes or pastries that could be eaten while you walk round the garden as I thought it might be too nippy to sit around outside.
Harold Hill Salvation Army raised over £2700 during their open days and we sent £1400 to Macmillan Cancer Support when we opened the garden at the end of September. All of our summer open days and the nursery were affected by Gallows Corner being shut (and it’s still shut!). Thank you to everyone for their support; helping in the tea shed, garden, selling tickets, bringing cakes and organising the car park. We couldn’t do it without you. Thanks also to all of you for visiting the garden and eating cake here and then taking cake home to eat.
The cake competition for the Macmillan open garden day was very well supported. Coffee and walnut was the most popular, closely followed by lemon drizzle for the second year running. In third place was Dorothy’s lemon and blueberry cake. There are several new ‘cake ideas’ and we were thinking about having a cake trial day, perhaps in May so you can all be guinea pigs. It will be ‘first come, first served’! The Alma Arms in Navestock kindly supported our catering last year by providing quiche and have offered a contribution again this year.
I have worked with several customers for garden and border design. Please let me know if you would like any help. It’s something that I’m always happy to do, ranging from finding the right plant for a difficult place to designing a whole garden.
The garden will be open to the public in aid of the Salvation Army between 11am and 4pm on:
Saturdays 20th June, 18th July, 15th August and 12th September 2026
The garden will be open to the public in aid of the National Garden Scheme between 11am and 4pm on:
Wednesdays 8th July, 5th August and 2nd September 2026
The garden will also be open to the public in aid of Macmillan between 11am and 4pm on:
Saturday 26th September 2026
Please add these dates to your diaries – all the admission and refreshment takings go to the respective charities and I know these donations are important to them.
We changed the nursery hours slightly starting in 2024 – here are the details;
The opening hours for the nursery from the beginning of March to the end of June,
every Friday and Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 10am-4pm and
Bank Holidays 10am – 5pm
From the beginning of July to the end of September,
Saturdays 10am-5pm
or by arrangement; via the website www.longhouseplants.com
tim@thelonghouse.net
or 01708 371719
We all know that we had a dry year in 2025. There were only 20.78 inches (527.5mm) of rain but we’ve had worse. February to September 2025 inclusive were all drier than 2024. In 2025 it was particularly dry in March, May, June and August. The rainfall in 2024 was 33.2 inches (853mm) so a big difference of 12.42 inches (325.5mm).
I started to think about the weather over the years and this encouraged me to look out some of my older rain records. Previously I had published on my website and in the nursery, rain records since the nursery started in 2005 but now they go back to 1990. The average rainfall for 1990-2025 was 26.7 inches (680.3mm).
These records show that it was dry in 1990, 1991, 1996, and 1997 with less than 20 inches (508mm) of rain. We had wet years in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024 with more than 30 inches (762mm) of rain. The timing and rate of the rain throughout the year impacts the garden and nursery. For example after a long dry spell, a short burst of heavy rain is not as useful as the same amount of rain in a gentle shower.
The weather is always such a ‘hot’ topic for gardeners and growers and the lack of rain last year made things very difficult. The ground became too hard to dig and the watering was a constant chore. There were frosts until the end of May so it was difficult to get roots to grow on some crops because of the cold nights. However it was hot and sunny during the day so a lot of plants came into bloom early and things like the wisteria were glorious but over very quickly. The early pattern of blooming carried on throughout the year. It seemed to me that plants were blooming 4-6 weeks earlier than usual.
We didn’t get the usual wind in May. I usually reckon that once the Aquilegias are looking pretty then it will be windy and flatten them, instead it was windy at the end of June, so it stripped the petals off the roses that were blooming then.
It is easier for the plants to cope with a dry summer if the spring has been dry as well. This is because the dry spring encourages the plants roots to go deep into the ground in search of moisture. A wet spring followed by a dry summer is a difficult combination as the roots haven’t gone deep and then the plants suffer. Watering plants in the garden and at planting correctly is very important. Please make sure that the root ball of any plant is thoroughly wet before planting and it will need to be watered until it is established. Just sprinkling a little water on the top is no use but also don’t overwater, so it’s important to keep an eye on new planting and plants in pots.
I did notice that there were not as many slugs and snails around in 2025. This would have been because of the dry weather but also because of predator numbers. 2024 was a bad year for slugs and snails so there was also an increase in the number of hungry predators.
A lot of the plants put on a good show but many were rather shorter than usual, I noticed this on the roses, especially the floribundas, day lilies and red hot pokers in particular.
Autumn came early in 2025. It was chilly in August, by the end of September down to 5º overnight and in November there were some sharp frosts, I noticed -4º overnight.
All of this lead to what is called a ‘mast year’. I noticed a bumper crop of acorns which are the ‘hard mast crops’ and lots of berries which are ‘soft mast crops’. The path through the garden near the camellias was covered with acorns. This means that there will be an increase in the number of creatures that eat acorns and beech nuts. So there will probably be more corvids and rodents around. This huge crop also means that the producer of the crop won’t grow as much because so much energy has gone into producing the fruit. Generally mast years are not consecutive.
A lot of the autumn colours were early and good because of the weather, leaf fall came early in the autumn and many perennials died down early so it has made this winter seem bare for a long time.
I wonder what 2026 will be like?
I look forward to seeing you in the nursery and garden.
Tim