A nightmare season so far

Well, after last years beautiful blooms, this year is turning into a nightmare. To begin with at least a third of my plants buds were coming too early. On top of this the autumn temperatures have been very warm, this not only pushed the plants on but scorched quite a few of them.  On top of this I've had a plague of Black Fly. My plants were treated with a systemic insecticide and these black fly have not survived on the leaves but they have survived on the buds.  Despite repeated spraying they still persisted.  Tody I cut off all the blooms that I could see black fly in, in an effort to save what's left.

John Nevils new one, McTell is a lovely attractive bright bronze at just 3ft tall. This early bloom didn't scorch in the hot weather so this is a good positive and I'll certainly grow a few more next year. 

A nice bloom of Shirley Primrose, unfortunately ready to cut right now. This Thomas Pockett variety from 1938 is called Patricia Barnett in Australia and New Zealand. This variety has gone through the NCS cleaning up programe.  McKinley is doing well but it broke my heart to cut two blooms off with black fly.

Silver Gigantic's are incurving this year due to high temperatures. Bronze Gigantic's are incurving too.

Jessie Habgood's showing promise.

I've grown a few Fairweather's and these are early too.