http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6458067.ece

So much for “flaming June”. On Saturday, an overnight low temperature of minus 2.7C (27F) was recorded at Kinbrace in the Scottish Highlands. And on Friday, around 5cm (2in) of snow fell on the Highlands, enough to build snowmen, and snow also covered some of the highest hills in Cumbria and Northumberland.

So it’s cold and snowy in June in the Scottish Highlands…

Mae (02:32:49) : [...] somebody who grew up with real summers and who spends every summer in Scotland longing for some heat.

OK, Scotland… That will make tomatoes a bit of a problem 8-\

I live in an area which seems to get far less rain than normal in Scotland – maybe a slightly milder microclimate – and I had been looking forward to planting some fruit trees and fruiting plants as well as roses, even the lavender was doing well for a while but my garden seems to be running a bit late this year.

My guess is that it will be “running a bit late” for the next decade or three…

E.M.Smith – any resources online where I can check out good dwarf varieties for fruits/tomatoes/roses that can cope with the wind here and the lack of sun hours and maybe the colder weather heading my way?

Well, one problem you will have with the online stuff is import restrictions to the E.U. and G.B…. so you are better served by a local garden shop or nursery that knows your area very well (and local garden clubs can be a godsend – folks who’ve spent the last 40 years banging on “that cold tomato problem” and can tell you exactly what works – or that nothing works…)

Fruits: I would expect (and could be very wrong!) stone fruits and apples (and maybe a few pears) that can stand winter cold and don’t need a lot of heat to ripen. That, and various bramble berries – like raspberries.

Roses? Gads, there’s a million of them and I don’t know much about cold ones… but generally the older roses were more hardy. The Yellow Rose of Texas stands up to some frozen Canada Express winters and cooking summers and we had an old “rose hips” red rose of unknown type but planted about 90 years ago that didn’t seem to care what weather happened (from 110 F + to 19 F and below…). So I’d look for old varieties.

Most anything planted where you are will have trouble growing, so I think you will get a ‘dwarf’ no matter what you plant… If not, you can always prune it to a Bonsai ;-)

Tomatoes are going to need a “hot house”. I’m in California a bit “in” from the Coast Range mountains. In a hot summer, I can grow most tomatoes. In a cool summer, cold tolerant only. We are far warmer than Scotland…

So if you really want tomatoes, build a small greenhouse. (They can be as small as 1 or 2 meters on a side…). I’d start with Siberia and Siberian. (Two slightly different very cold tolerant tomatoes) and maybe a “Stupice” Czech tomato and work up from there. Even a “cold frame” against the house facing the sun could do it.

These folks: http://www.seedfest.co.uk/about/about.html

say:

In 2007, we hope to also introduce our first introduction of our own exclusive breeding in the guise of a brand new cherry tomato we call “Highland Lass” which was developed during the time we spent on the north east coast of Scotland. The Highland Lass tomato is a very fine, very small fruited cherry tomato that sets its fruit even in Scotland’s very bitter climate. This new cherry tomato variety descended in part from the famous British tomato variety “Moneymaker” and has been cultivated purely for the last three years without any variation in leaf-type, fruit size, fruit color or other features. Highland Lass is very hardy and resists even very cool temperatures with high winds and thick fogs, having been trialed strictly on an outdoor basis in Scotland’s brutal climate with no assistance of cover.

So you might well have a chance at some cherry tomatoes outdoors…

I’d ask those folks (who seem very focused on cold conditions) what fruit trees might work too…

And here:

http://www.thegardeningwebsite.co.uk/butterworths-organic-nursery-speciality-fruit-trees-scottish-apple-varieties-i115.html

Lists a Scottish Apple.

Beyond that, all I can suggest is a google of “Scottish fruit trees” or “Scotland fruit tree” and see what pops up.

Carefully chosen words, I suspect. Anyone who’s ever held a barbecue here anticipates cold and wet…

Funny how “hot” is opposed to “wet”. Would be like saying “someone predicted the winter to be cold, but in fact it has been dry”.

You’re quite right. It can be wet and warm. In fact this is where a lot posters get it wrong. It’s often the case that it’s wet but temperatures are still above average particularly at night.

However, this thread is specifically about the Met Office forecast which starts as follows:

The coming summer is ‘odds on for a barbecue summer’ ….

I would suggest that means both warm and DRY.

Funny how “hot” is opposed to “wet”. Would be like saying “someone predicted the winter to be cold, but in fact it has been dry”.”

It’s funny how Al Gore stated, not a prediction, that the Arctic ice would be gone in 5 years (Circa 2013). Now that *is* funny.

In the Isle of Wight (also UK and an allegedly warm spot) it is currently lunchtime and 14.5c, which is 58f. We had several days warmer than this in March!

I know it’s early days, but the Met Office’s “barbecue summer ™” is looking a bit slow off the blocks!

Speaking with CSIRO and UNSW a couple of weeks ago (Iam an earth and environmental scientist, with some informal training in climatology, although no Im not a climatologist), the latest research (away from all this CO2 hysteria) is that the Indian Ocean Dipole is neutral and just about to swing to the negative phase which is good news for SE Aust re. rainfall. The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) also appears to migrating northwards (after a decade or so further south), resulting in stronger fronts hitting SE Aust, instead of weak ‘hits’. You get stronger fronts mixing with more moisture from warmer Indian Ocean waters, and you get more rainfall. El Nino and La Nina have minimal effect in SE Australia (ie. SA, Vic, Tas) Only NSW and Qld are majorly impacted by what goes on in the Pacific – and boy have they copped the rain this year!!

A negative IOD will bring more moisture to SE Australia and a higher SAM. The reason for the prolonged drought in this region is primarily due to back-to-to-back-to-back positive IOD events, and a northwards migration of SAM should give us stronger fronts. This week is the perfect example of when the two mix.

Early days yet I know, but all the indicators look promising for a relatively back to normal winter, and a wetter than average spring. It infuriates me when we have dimwit politicians like Wong, Garrettand Brown who know nothing about science, let alone climate science, blaming Black Saturday solely on this AGW theory for their own political gain, when natural cycles are at work. No talk of 1851 when we had a quarter of Victoria on fire after exactly the same temperature lead-up.

“What a save!”

Anyone else remember Gordon Banks’ save on the Pele header in the 1970 World Cup? The Beeb must have replayed it 200 times

Yep. Jeff Astle missed a sitter in the game. It was also the year England got knocked out by West Germany after being 2-0 up with 20 minutes to go. Regarding the Banks save: There was a story doing the rounds that immediately after the save, Bobby Moore approached Banks and said ” try and hang on to it next time, Banksy”. Probably not true but Moore did have a sense of humour.

I’ve just realised that this is probably lost on 3/4 of the readers of this blog.

I was at the Wimbledon finals in 1970, for the classic five set Rosewall/Newcombe match. The weather was very sunny and hot that day.

That was also the year which England did not win the World Cup in Mexico City in 100 degree plus weather. We were in the midst of an ice age scare at that time.