Ticking all the boxes

ACCORDING TO MY rain gauge, only 3mm of rain fell in my garden between dawn on 1 May and dusk on 31 May, making it the driest month I have recorded since April 2011.

One of the consequences of the drought has been the need to water my new hedge, a conservation mixture of native species, including beech, yew, wild privet and field maple. Curiously, most fatalities have been hawthorn and blackthorn, despite daily watering, and most of the more unusual species