The first week of August was warm, with a few wet days, but generally very cloudy. Temperatures then dropped a few degrees as the winds picked up and swung to the North.Mid-month saw a welcome change with high temperatures, sunshine and another burst of manual haymaking. Gelli Uchaf had a ‘Bioblitz’ visit in the early part of the month, when the fields were surveyed for plants and animals. One of the findings being a quite rare plant- Lesser bladderwort, Utricularia minor, found in our upper pond. The heaviest daily rainfall since late January, fell overnight on the 19th, and another brief pulse of hot weather developed on the 23rd. The rain was much needed, since some plants, like the masses of woodland Saxifraga fortunei, were starting to wilt.

So another changeable month, in which the late summer stalwarts – Hydrangeas and Clematis excelled for a second year, under the lower light conditions this year. By the end of the month 111.6 mm of rain had fallen, but the PV inverter record, below, shows only very modest light levels for a summer month. Perhaps overall it could be viewed as being quite a benign month, with the unusual theme for us here of being warm, cloudy, but not very wet – a common theme for several months in fact, in 2016. So far.