Summertime sadness…ish

25 August 2026

Late August, and the gardens are untidy. The lawns are yellow and scorched, the roses hang droopy with fat hips, stems groaning under the weight of them. Lavender, once purple and promising, bobs grey and dull in the late summer breeze. Under-watered hydrangea leaves hang as flaccid as a dog’s ear. Spiders weave gossamer threads, endlessly optimistic that dozy flies will meet their end there. Leaves start to fall off the trees, confused by the change in weather, too early to the party.

Late August, when I am at my most dramatically melancholy, in case you couldn’t tell. Something about the end of summer, ‘back to school’ adverts in shop windows, a sudden nip once the evening arrives that you forgot ever existed, having to haul a jumper out of the back of the cupboard when you’ve not needed one in months. A walk home at 8pm that is suddenly more dusk-like than you realised, or a keen breeze that goosepimples your skin.

But of course, it isn’t all doom and gloom. Once deadheaded, those roses will come back again. The lavender, gritty grey heads snipped off, looks bright and cheerful again with fresh new purple buds. The ‘ice plant’ sedums are turning from green to pink, one of my favourite last-hurrah plants. And of course, the salvias show no sign of stopping and won’t until autumn’s end. If I just keep on cutting off the fluffy spent scabious heads, I see at least a dozen more flowers coming - and can cut those new blooms to have in a vase inside the house. The japanese anemone are as white as snow, dancing in the breeze.

At this point in summer, clients gesture to their gardens with an apology to me, as though they should have tidied it before I arrived. I say: all gardens look messy at the moment, and try to make them feel better about the floppy brown-headed verbenas dropping their seeds all over the place, or the thick matted hair of stipa ponytail grasses that need a good comb. As soon as these deeds are done, and the bindweed threads are pulled neat off the shrubs, and the roses look upright again having lost their heavy hips, we can enjoy the garden. Yes, perhaps a jumper may be needed after dinner now, and the secateurs are putting in a more regular shift than perhaps any other time of year, but the sun is still warm, the bees are still snuffling in amongst the hibiscus and the hebe, the tomatoes are still ripening fat and sweet, and life is happening all around.