Spring 2021 Your Experience

A few differences here this spring compared to last year.
My Lilac "syringa vulgaris " hasn't flowered. Not even a bud. Neither has my Rhododendron even though it has buds they haven't opened and its looking a little worse for wear as to is my Azealea that flowered beautifully last year for around 4 weeks. This year a week at most and it looks like its give up too.
I seem to have more green & black fly too. Everything seems to be covered in them. Guess that's gardening for you

 

Things were definitely slow to get started here in the midlands in April/May. April was really cold and May was in incessantly wet, now we've gone to roasting hot.

 

Well, I've been gardening for almost a decade here in Notts and it has just been the oddest year in a couple of ways, the first being the insanely high number of greenfly/blackfly! I stopped spraying everything with pesticides about 4 years ago and gradually the ladybirds, hoverflies etc. had increased in number and kept them low which was great, but this year they seem completely overwhelmed! The other odd thing is the big growth spurt the plants have had due to all the rain resulting in quite a bit of early, lush growth with some plants. But no flowers yet this year on many plants which would have definitely started to produce a few flowers by now, for example I have 7 different salvias and not a single flower yet, although 'Nachtvlinder' and 'Caradonna' look promising and on the brink, hardy geraniums which usually start in May not flowering until early June, with the only exception being my phaeums.

I don't mind the late flowering at all really, but the number of greenfly and blackfly has upset me a bit, I was so pleased that so many things had eventually appeared which were predating on them and that the garden was achieving a degree of natural balance, hope things find a balance again next Spring/Summer... Another thing I've found very peculiar this year is the unusually low number of hoverflies, perhaps that's a big part of the problem!

Nick