As the year draws to a close, I’ve been looking back over my garden in 2025. It was certainly a challenging growing season for all sorts of reasons.
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It all started out so well and the hard work filling pots with bulbs certainly paid off.
These were pots given to me by British Flowerpots. I’d used a mix of bulbs and topped them with violas, which flowered all winter – not always the case.
I particularly liked these dwarf iris in the terracotta bowl. Sometimes a simple combination is more effective than a mass of different things. I’ve not replanted this bowl – time got away from me – but I can see shoots starting to come through. It remains to be seen how well the iris flower a second year.
The cercis has had its best year ever, something that always worries me slightly as plants so often flower profusely just before they die. I really hope that’s not the case. The flowers, which appear before the leaves, have now been replaced by long, pod-like seeds. It’s absolutely covered.
Of course, the real story of my garden in 2025 was the drought. Gardening on extremely sandy soil was challenging with so little rain.
You could tell it was a bad year when even the rugosa rose was showing signs of stress. It’s usually bomb-proof. Luckily, it has bounced back, unlike some other things, including phlox.
The echinops loved the sunshine and heat so much it flowered not once but twice. The second flush wasn’t as tall as the first but gave some welcome autumn colour.
Roses also did well – I suspect because they were watered regularly in an attempt to get them through the drought. There were still a couple in flower in November.
I was particularly relieved to see the kniphofia in flower – does anyone else anxiously wait for signs of plants? This was nearly lost a couple of years ago when it rotted due to a very wet period even though it’s on a very well-drained part of the garden.
It was dug up and the best bits replanted and has sulked until this year when there were several flower spikes on both clumps.
One of our major jobs this year was replacing the pergola, which was leaning dangerously thanks to posts that had rotted. To be fair, it was nearly 30 years old.
Quite a bit of the old wisteria had also died off but there were enough new shoots to make a decent covering over the new posts. We also ‘peeled back’ the rambler rose and managed to re-attach that with no loss of summer blooms. Even the wisteria flowered – not always a given as it so often gets hit by late frost. I’m hoping for an even better display in 2026 and must get out and do the winter pruning.
There was a slow start to the dahlias, not least because I was late potting them up. However, the long season with no frost until well into November meant plenty of blooms.
There were certainly plenty of flowers to pick for the house and even the sweet peas did well despite the heat.
There seemed to be a lot of blackfly around this year – I was even finding them on dahlias in November and I’ve never known foxgloves to be hit before. I have a lot of ladybirds in the garden but think they were a bit overwhelmed.
It was possibly the worst year I’ve had for vegetable growing. Beans failed to do anything although a late sowing produced some pickings, while lettuce and beetroot struggled. Even the squash, which you would think would love the heat, failed to put on much growth.
The tomatoes were good but the surprise star was cabbage. Brassicas shouldn’t really do well on my light soil but obviously this hadn’t read the memo!
Aside from the usual growing setbacks, there were a couple of really unwanted developments in my garden in 2025.
The first muntjac deer found its way into the garden and the honey fungus has spread. We had one or two roe deer in before we blocked a gap alongside the gates but this is the first muntjac. It scarpered pretty quickly and, so far, we’ve not seen another. Let’s hope it stays that way.
The honey fungus is more troubling as there’s so little you can do about it and it affects so many things. I found it in the drive a couple of years ago but now it has crept into the main garden. A nearby pyrantha is showing signs of ailing and I just hope it’s weather stress and not the fungus.
Yet, it’s in a gardener’s nature to be optimistic and to look forward. After all, gardening is always a leap of faith and we growers are always thinking about the next season. Already, there are signs of hellebore buds and the first snowdrops are beginning to appear. With luck, 2026 will be a better season.
Main image: Rosa ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.
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