Mil has ruined my garden

[Rubykippers]

We moved into our house in October last year. When we viewed it the owners told us that they had created a 'lasagne' garden which throw up different flowers according to the season which essentially meant very little work needed doing just general tidying and a bit of weeding.

Anyway, I had ds in march and mil came down every four weeks or so to help with housework which was appreciated. On her last visit, I went to a funeral with ds leaving her alone for the day. When I came back, I discovered that she had pulled up all the forget me nots, some lovely spiky orange flowers and other things. She said that she was making room for us to plant other flowers. To this day I don't know why she has done this.

Our garden looks awful. The plants and flowers she did leave alone are now dying and it just looks shit. I am so upset with her.

My question is, do I need to wait till spring to see what comes up or should I just start over with planting new stuff and what do I plant? I know nothing about gardening.

Sorry for the rant.

Why don't you ask your MIL for advice, she seems quite a confident gardener.

Ok, don't panic. It may well be that your MiL hasn't damaged anything at all. I think you might be worrying over nothing.

I take my forget me nots out after they've gone over every year - they set seed very nicely, so will be back next year.

I'm not sure what the spiky orange flowers are (aquilegia?), but they too may be back next year.

August is often a time when there's not much flowering in the garden, so to some extent, this is to be expected.

Where are you in the country? If you've had the severe winter followed by a prolonged drought that a lot of other places have had, you may well be naturally lacking the August plants that you 'should' have - my dahlias which should be flowering now are nowhere near ready, and the achilleas which are supposed to be flowering with them have flowered and gone over 6 weeks earlier than I'd expect.

Don't worry about doing anything - just accept that this has been a tough year for gardens, and see what you get next year.