We’re now moving slowly into midsummer here on the island. It’s an interesting time to have a Mediterranean garden!
It’s hot, the ground is dry, and things are starting to get sleepy in that summer heat. I am grateful for the sun – after all, all my friends and family back in the UK are posting photos of the rain (surprise)!
but at the same time all this heat isn’t good for my little pot garden!
Plants That Don’t Do So Well In A Mediterranean Garden!
I still have no roses to speak of – I kept eyeing them up at the garden centre whenever we drove past, and all the cute little cottages and villas in the towns had AMAZING roses blooming everywhere last month! But then these last few weeks I’ve noticed a lot of those blooms aren’t looking quite so healthy anymore which I assume is due to the heat that has suddenly spiked up.
(So I’ve been amusing myself reading books about roses and how they got their names instead, check out Women In My Rose Garden for a lovely, interesting read!)
I’ve also had to watch as the sunshine killed off my poor tomato plants – they’re just about surviving! I always thought tomatoes LOVED the heat and sunshine! but I’ve noticed they’ve done much better when we put a shader over our balcony.
They’ve also been under constant attack from spider mites 🙁 this has made me so sad. I left them for a few days and nights unattended while I was away, and came back to half dead plants covered with stringy webs and little dots. Ugh!
I made my special aphid killer (see the organic, all-natural aphid killer recipe you can make at home, here) which keeps away most of the bugs but I think together with the fierce sun and the fact I haven’t topped up their soil, they’re gonners 🙁 we had some lovely tiny tomatoes from them though. It does make me laugh to think I spent about £50 on tomato plants (including soil, containers, etc) to have about 30 tomatoes. Lol. Better luck next time.
However all is not lost – despite not having a garden, we are still surrounded by plants and green all over our paved areas!
More than making up for the lack of my toms and roses, I have these stepping up instead.
Plants That Grow Well In The Heat In The Mediterranean!
I have no idea what this flower is but it makes me happy every morning! It has bright orange trumpet shaped flowers, but I’ve seen it elsewhere on the island in yellow. They are SO summery and the bees love this plant! Though it does seem to have drowned the little olive tree next to it somewhat.
These are my fave though – red hibiscus flowers which totally surround an entire one side of our swimming pool. They look amazing and I think I’m going to grab a bunch this evening to attempt making some tea with!
And of course these beautiful things – bougainvillea. The villa next door is unoccupied, and although their garden s maintained, I don’t think the gardeners bother to trim the tops, meaning their bougainvillea has grown about 10ft tall and quite happily has grown over into, and adopted, our garden (or lack of it)! And I’m most happy to have it. It’s currently pale pink, white, and orange, but I know come later this year we will have the deeper pinks and maybe purple too. It’s such a Mediterranean plant and it makes me so happy to see it.
So it’s not all bad having a Mediterranean garden, even if it’s a somewhat not quite the one I had planned, full of roses and tomatoes, like a typical English girl!
I know one day we will most likely leave our home here in the sunshine and eventually buy a property in France, and then I’m sure I’ll get my rose garden. And then you’ll probably find me moaning about the weather – like a typical English girl 😉
For now, I’m super happy with my Mediterranean garden in the sun, and the beautiful colour it’s bringing to us.
How does the weather impact what you grow where you live? Have you managed to grow roses in hotter climates? I know it’s possible to do, they thrive here in Spring, but I’m also an organic-only gardener which makes it a little harder still. Leave your best hot-weather gardener tips for me below! 🙂
