It is no exaggeration that we have suffered a calamity in the garden.
Our lovely, fledgling wisteria has had a serious setback. We planted it three years ago against the back of the house and have been painstakingly pruning and training it in the hope that we should be rewarded with blooms.
Last year we were ecstatic when two buds appeared and proceeded to extend into beautiful long mauve racemes. This year we counted 132 buds. We boasted about it on twitter. We admired it smugly at the end of the day. Then we noticed that the chubby little buds that had been so full of promise were hanging colourless and limp from the stem.
Not all the buds were affected but more than half were. We had been the victim of a cruel, late frost. Wisterias are hardy vines but those little flower buds are very vulnerable as they start to elongate. MLH is heartbroken.
We have certainly learnt our lesson for next year.