August 2026 began in the same dry, sunny, and warm mode as the record-breaking July 2026, with the garden looking very stressed, matching the state of the gardeners.

In the wooded parts of the garden, much of our prized groundcover level of herbaceous perennials has died off – Ajuga, Saxifrage, Chrysosplenium. Geranium macrrorhizum has once more proved its worth, acting as a living mulch which protects the earth surface from direct insolation, and seems to cope well with such severe drought – thanks no doubt to its eponymous thick roots.

Most larger Hydrangeas and Rhododendrons have now had several whole stems pruned out, or lower branches removed to reduce the burden of transpiration loss from the plant. I fear for evergreens like Rhododendrons, which seem to suddenly begin to wilt. Camellias, Skimmia and Pieris seem more resilient, at least for now, simply losing lower stem leaves. This is turning into the most extreme drought conditions we’ve ever had to cope with in any garden.  In this year of a ‘super El Niño’, which is predicted to intensify into the autumn, the landscape and garden are firmly in drought mode – indeed, the whole of Wales was declared to be a drought zone by National Resources Wales at the end July.

The time spent lugging out unneeded surplus hay to mulch around the trees and grown-on Hydrangea seedlings in the Sorbus and Malus copse, which were planted out in the wet spring, has probably helped limit evaporation and aided keeping these younger plants alive. Watering morning and night in rotation around the garden has become an increasingly tiring exercise, having to eke out our spring water supply, as the stream flow progressively diminishes.

It was therefore a huge relief to finally have a little more rain fall in the early hours of August 4th. Better than nothing, but sadly only 4 mm.

We were pleased that our speedily cobbled-together temporary guttering on the back of the barn, made from a quickly split and angle-ground surplus roofing sheet, and salvaged brackets from an old display stand, worked well. This primitive, temporary system yielded many litres of water captured in our compost-storing plastic dustbins, which I’d emptied just in time for the clouds to form and the light rain to fall overnight.

Any container without holes in the bottom has suddenly become suitable for use as an under-eaves-placed drip-collection vessel. And a quick bit of arithmetic reveals just how much water can be collected from quite a long roof like this; from even just the 4 mm that fell overnight. This rain was priceless for (temporarily) reviving many shrubs and perennials which had come closer to the point of terminal collapse than we have ever witnessed before. It equates to 4 litres of water per square metre of garden, yet digging into the soil, it seems to have vanished into thin air already.

The wider landscape will take much longer to revive, I fear. At least we still have sufficient grass in our fields for our much-reduced small flock of sheep this year.

This small amount of rain proved to be a very temporary respite, with yet more hot, dry weather. Great for our swallows, which reared a second or possibly third brood.

And for an influx of Clouded Yellow butterflies, and more Common Blues in the upper hay meadow than ever before.

Yet probably disastrous for our mole population- I’m guessing that many will have perished, as there are now signs of collapsing, open, unrepaired tunnels in many fields.

As we headed to August 12th, I slept so poorly that I crept from bed and watched 12 shooting stars in about 45 minutes, yet all I could think of was I’d rather have had some rain falling.

A day later, we traipsed up the hill with a colander to watch the nearly complete lunar/solar eclipse around 7 pm as the sun was sinking in the West.

Yet by then our focus was more on the fires that were burning both to the South, near Talley, and the East, near Rhandyrmyn.

Many more were by now blazing across a parched South Wales, and presenting real issues for the Fire Service.

By now I’d decided to rush out a long video to capture the state of the landscape and garden at this exceptionally unusual and demanding time for plants and people. It will serve as a record for future years of how landscape, trees, shrubs, perennials and wildlife recovered – or didn’t – from the drought and heat of summer 2026.

Perhaps my wishing for rain on a shooting star paid off. A little under 1 mm fell on the 17th, followed by more like 2.8 mm the following evening. Almost enough for me to have a morning off from the increasingly tiring watering of plants with spring water, and instead I refilled a couple of our IBC’s, with more dry weather and heat in the mid-term forecast.

One of the things I was noticing by now was just how much maturing tree and shrub roots were projecting above ground level. The earth was shrinking significantly, which, as well as fissuring and cracking, will take a long time to recover from. What impact this will have on plant health and viability in the years ahead remains to be seen.

Eventually, by the last week of the month, more rain began to fall in increasing amounts. Yet even 35 mm during this time didn’t restore topsoil water levels. The stream level hardly rose.

I’d managed to plant out about 20 cuttings of the lovely rose ‘Grouse’ in pre-prepared holes, and watered them in. I’m hoping the rain will help them off to a good start and we might manage a few flowers along a hopefully low hedge surrounding the malus and sorbus copse, by next summer.

I’d also managed to dig up most of the daffodils from the Scamp’s order trial beds, and was surprised by how many of them already had long thick roots developing – they clearly need to be replanted asap though turf in the malus copse which is still bone dry.

Finally, after a blood moon heralded the end of summer, and the month, we wondered if we could chance putting away the hoses, drip-line buckets and Li-ion pumps. We’d kept up with pumping out the considerable quantities of water collected onto those areas of the garden with mature evergreen – and taller tree cover, to try to restore groundwater levels asap, and give some of these evergreens a better chance of producing viable flower buds for next spring.

The month’s weather data, including the boost from the last few days of rain, is shown below with recent August’s data for comparison and maximum and minimum readings highlighted. The figures for total monthly rainfall of 74.3 mm and PV output of 466.28 KWH place it as the second driest and sunniest August we’ve ever enjoyed here, since I recorded such things – just behind 2022, and just ahead of last August’s also very sunny and dry figures.

Coming after the exceptionally dry, hot and sunny July 2026, it will make the summer of 2026 one which will linger in our memories, probably for a long time – like that of 1976.

However, back then we were carefree students. This year, we’re ageing gardeners/smallholders struggling to cope with the fall-out from water shortages!

The Met Office summary for summer 2026, which explains that it is, provisionally, the hottest on record, can be found here.

Although, as is now often the case, I do not agree with the words they have chosen to introduce this story “The season’s mean temperature was made around 130 times more likely due to human-induced climate change.” Really? I’d love to know the clever computer models which came up with this – far cleverer clearly than the one which

2013: 131.6 mm, 11 dry days, PV – N/A

2014: 169.9 mm,  9 dry days, PV – 405.88 KWH

2015: 195.3 mm, 6 dry days,  PV – 364.3 KWH

2016: 111.6 mm, 14 dry days, PV – 373.87 KWH

2017: 151.65 mm 5 dry days PV 337.71 KWH

2018: 150.4 mm, 4 dry days, PV – 340.16 KWH

2019: 165.5 mm, 9 dry days, PV – 414.2 KWH

2020: 260.4 mm, 12 dry days, PV – 334.28 KWH

2021: 110.0 mm, 12 dry days, PV – 354.4 KWH

2022: 43.4 mm, 18 dry days, PV – 475.4 KWH

2023: 187.9 mm, 5 dry days,  PV – 327.1 KWH

2024: 148.54 mm, 7 dry days, PV – 367.7 KWH

2025: 101.5 mm, 15 dry days, PV – 441.7 KWH

2026: 74.3 mm, 17 dry days, PV _  466.3 KWH