Published: 26 June 2026 - Watch on YouTube
Hello everyone. We got back from our holiday last night, and this morning I walked out into the garden to survey the damage. We had been away for two and a half weeks, which is exactly three weeks since I recorded my last gardening video, and a lot can change in that time. I wanted to do a quick faceless update to show you how everything coped while we were gone.
It could not have been a hotter welcome home. Yesterday was scorching across the UK and today was no different, easily 36 or 36 and a half degrees Celsius, which by our standards is properly boiling. English houses simply are not built for that kind of heat, and with no air con it was a tough day to get through.
So I have not done a single thing in the garden today, and I am not planning to just yet. Tomorrow is meant to be much cooler and far more manageable, so I will save the real work for then. For now I just wanted to look at how the garden had changed.
I am really glad my husband managed to connect the dahlias to the watering system before we left, so every one of them got a drink while we were away. On top of that, my brother-in-law kindly offered to come round and water by hand.
As it turned out he only needed to do that a couple of times. For most of the beginning of our absence it just rained and rained, so the garden more or less looked after itself on that front.
The verbena is the real showstopper. In my last video, three weeks ago, there were only a few flower heads on those long stems when I was hiding in the shed from the rain. Now it is a proper bush, as tall as the trellis and, from the right angle, way taller than me. It is absolutely buzzing with bees and butterflies. I half expected it, because the same thing happened last year.
Then there is the potato jungle. This is the first time I have grown potatoes in a border rather than in large pots, and the difference is mad. In pots they never grew this bushy because the roots and tubers had so little room. In the border they have gone completely wild and swallowed the dahlias I staked up last time, so much so that you can barely see them.
The veg is a mixed bag. Somewhere in there are the pepper pots, and I can just about make out the plants, though I am not sure how viable they still are. There is a tiny zucchini forming, the beans have popped out, and the parsnips and salads are doing okay.
Sadly the leeks are no longer with us, and there are casualties amongst the seedlings too, some of which I honestly cannot even identify any more. The marigolds have gone over as well, but that is no big deal. There is a small sugar pumpkin at the back that has tangled itself through the trellis I set up as a last-minute job before we left. I had hoped to train it along the fence like I did a few years ago, so I will figure that out.
The roses have really rewarded the hard prune I gave them. I deadheaded the Pilgrim right back before we left, and one single stem has come back covered in flower heads. That one is on steroids, I tell you. I chopped the Generous Gardener down really low, leaving only a few fresh stems, and the growth in three weeks is genuinely impressive. Out the front, the six Lady of Shalott plants were deadheaded to nothing and are now back in full flower. The only downside is the aphids, which have found the roses again, so I gave them a spray of plain water last night.
The dahlias are coming up, though not all of them are happy. Dark Spirit is looking a bit sorry for itself, but casualties were always predictable. There is also a lovely pink one I have never seen before, clearly one of the new varieties, and I cannot find a label for it anywhere. So for now it stays a mystery. The tall alliums have all opened, a kind of purply white, bending under their own weight but still hanging on, and the Echinacea is now almost as tall as I am.
The hanging baskets survived, which was lovely to see. The gigantic lilies are now taller than the fence and have not opened yet, so we will get to enjoy them, and my husband is very chuffed with those because they are really his.
The apple tree took a battering from all the storms while we were away, and there are a good number on the ground at the bottom of the border, blown down by the wind. Even so, plenty are still hanging on, and the same goes for the pear. To my surprise the gladioli is coming into flower, at least one of them, which is great given how late I planted it. The hydrangea has released all its flower heads, and the Welsh onion flowered while we were away and is now more or less done.
So that is how three weeks away left the garden, a bit messy in places, a few casualties, but far more thriving than not. Once this heat breaks tomorrow I can start tidying, removing the ill leaves and working out what to do with that wandering pumpkin. For now I am just happy to be home and pleasantly surprised by how much has grown. What is the thing you most dread coming back to after a holiday, the weeds or the watering? I hope you enjoyed this quick update, and I will see you in the next video.
Tags: #HolidayGarden #VerbenaBonariensis #PotatoJungle #WestSussexGarden #GardenUpdate #MyWindyGarden