What a year 2026 has been. We’ve had heatwave after blistering heatwave, leading to drought in parts of the UK – and resulting hosepipe bans are expected to last until the end of the year, according to a Thames Water boss.

That’s spelled chaos for gardeners.

The Royal Horticultural Society found that while some species, like wild carrots and lavender, thrived in the parched conditions, others like hydrangeas suffered enormously.

And a peek at Reddit’s r/GardeningUK proves that ordinary growers are starting to reconsider what they plant, too.

Writing to the group, site user u/oldschoolie asked their fellow green-fingered forum members: “What will you be giving up on because it died or needed too much coddling in the drought this year?”

Here are some of the most-upvoted responses:

Credit: u/Normal-Height-8577

BTW, the Royal Horticultural Society offers similar advice. Its principal horticultural advisor, Leigh Hunt, said: “As temperatures become more extreme don’t replace like for like – if a plant is struggling in your garden you can plant something better suited to the space.”

“I’ve been nursing a bunch of them for the last four years… and tried many spots, but every summer [they] become pretty sorry looking. [They] take too much effort to get back to [a good condition] before they get ‘summered’ again.”

Credit: u/Glittering-Mentat-4

Hydrangeas seem to be among the most susceptible plants in a heatwave.

“Urgh. Even with the drought, they still got slug-decimated, and have just sat there looking crap and scraggly since.”

Redditor u/A_Pure_Motive agreed, writing: “Same here, looked fabulous for about a month, if that, and have looked awful since the hot weather hit and also been subject to multiple aphid attacks. Saved all the seeds, hoping to plant more for next year, and now I’m thinking meh…”

“I want some grass, but the rest will be pollinator-friendly plants which don’t need much water.”

Wildflowers, clover, and thyme can “reduce or eliminate the need for watering and improve biodiversity,” explained the RHS. Gardens that follow a mixed grass and wildflower pattern are sometimes called tapestry lawns.

We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how important it is to place potted plants in dark, shady spots when it’s hot out. Their thinner soil dries out much faster than soil in the ground – this is especially true for dark plastic and unsealed terracotta pots.

In general, container plants suffer more in the heat.

“They always end up with powdery mildew and look awful. Output has been dwindling in recent years, especially bad this year.”

And u/destria seemed to have a similar experience, writing: “It’s been my worst year for courgettes too. Such a low yield. I’m usually drowning in them, but this year, even with five plants, we’ve only been getting maybe three to four decent courgettes each week. I don’t even like courgettes that much…”

“They’ve done very poor[ly] the last two years,” u/insrtitherenow, who‘s also given up on celery, said.

For their part, u/Panda1953 reckoned, “Neither sweet peas [nor] tomatoes have been a success this summer. Won’t bother next summer.”

If you’re looking to overhaul your back garden ahead of what seem to be very likely future heatwaves, we’ve written a handy guide on where to start.

British actor Hayley Atwell has admitted she’s less than pleased with how things turned out for her Marvel character the last time we saw her on our screens.

Hayley has portrayed Peggy Carter in a number of MCU projects, beginning in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, before landing her own TV spin-off.

She then played an alternate version of the character, dubbed Captain Carter, in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness in 2022, where she was seemingly killed off by Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch in battle using her own shield.

Speaking at the For the Love Of Fantasy & Sci-Fi event over the weekend, Hayley admitted she was a bit gutted to discover Captain Carter’s fate.

“If I’m really like brutally honest, I was so disappointed with how they positioned her and what happened to her in that scene,” she lamented. “It’s so small, and she gets frisbeed to death.”

She even claimed that “on set” she “tried” to make suggestions to improve the scene, but was ultimately told: “Sure… but no.”

“I felt that was like a bum steer and a complete disservice to the character,” Hayley concluded.

Later this year, Hayley will make a return to the MCU in the next Avengers movie Doomsday, which will serve as a sequel to 2019’s Endgame.

That film ended with Chris Evans’ Captain America travelling back in time to the 1940s to live out his days with Hayley’s Peggy Carter, with Marvel boss Kevin Feige making it clear that this new movie will pick up where Endgame left off.

Doomsday will feature a number of favourites from the superhero world, not to mention seeing the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Patrick Stewart and Alan Cumming reprise their roles from the X-Men movies for the first time in the MCU.

Meanwhile, Robert Downey Jr – previously known to MCU fans for his portrayal of Iron Man – is set to take on the role of the villainous Dr Doom.

Former Race Across The World competitor Jo Gardiner has died at the age of 61.

In a statement released on Monday morning, Jo’s family announced that she had died “following a long and courageous battle with cancer”.

“She lived fully, fiercely and never did anything by halves,” they said (as reported by Metro). “She was blessed with countless friends, drawn to her extraordinary magnetism. Somehow, each one felt as though they were among her very best.

“To us, she was more than all of these things. She was our family, our joy, our safe place and our absolute treasure.”

Jo’s family ended by making a call for privacy, adding: “We also ask everyone who knew and loved Jo to do exactly what she would have wanted: tell the funny stories, raise a glass, have an adventure, laugh loudly and live life to the full.

“She was one of a kind. There will never be another her.”

Jo and her son Sam took part in the second season of Race Across The World, which took the competing teams from Mexico City to Ushuaia, Argentina.

The pair finished in fourth place overall, after having to drop out during the penultimate leg after running out of money.

Last year, Sam died suddenly at the age of 24, following a car accident.

“On behalf of the Studio Lambert production team, the BBC and the whole Race Across The World cast, we offer our deepest and heartfelt sympathies to Jo’s son Charlie, and her wider family and friends,” a Race Across The World rep said on Monday.

“Following the tragic death of Jo’s son Sam last year, we paid tribute to how integral Sam and Jo had been to series two. Millions of people remembered their transformative journey across Latin America in 2020 and we hold that memory in our hearts as we fondly recall Jo’s passion for life, her kindness, her strength, and above all her utter devotion to Sam and her family.

“At the time of filming, Sam described his mum as amazing – and that is how we will always remember her. Jo became the matriarch of the Race Across The World cast family, she leaves a lasting legacy in the many lives that she touched, both through the series and beyond. It was a privilege to share her story and she will be deeply missed.”

Billie Piper has spoken out about Doctor Who’s uncertain future.

Last year, Billie was involved in a Doctor Who cliffhanger that stopped fans in their tracks, when Ncuti Gatwa’s Time Lord regenerated in the season finale into a figure played by the former pop star.

Immediately afterwards, fans debated whether this meant that she was playing a new character who would be the Sixteenth Doctor, or it was all a plot twist involving Rose Tyler, the entity “Bad Wolf” or another of Rose’s characters, the being known as “The Moment”.

However, it seems fans could be in for a long wait for answers.

Showrunner Russell T Davies announced back in June that a planned Christmas special for 2026 had been axed, and that he was stepping away from Doctor Who entirely, with the show’s future now being up in the air as it is now “out to competitive tender this year”, meaning different production companies can bid to take over at the helm.

Over the weekend, Billie made an appearance at the Love Of Fantasy & Sci-Fi event in London, where she addressed her future with the Doctor Who franchise during a fan Q&A.

“I am not the next Doctor, I am Rose Tyler in hiatus,” she said. “Sorry, that’s a really cryptic answer, but because I’m not currently filming Doctor Who as The Doctor, I can’t lie and say otherwise.”

“Phew, I’m sweating! I hate this,” she admitted.

Addressing Doctor Who fans, Billie added: “You’ve all got to be very patient, it’ll be worth it when it comes. And I think that we need to celebrate the fact that the show has been on the air for [21] years in its new incarnation. It’s been around for a very long time, and it’s massively successful and it’s impacted many people’s lives in a positive way.

“It’s had a bit of a rough time lately, and I think everyone just needs to chill out and wait for what comes from having space… and time.”

In July of last year, she said of her most recent Doctor Who appearance: “All I can say is I was approached very last-minute, and I can’t talk about in what capacity, but I found it very emotional to film and I think it’s a really great ending.”

“I found it quite moving, and it was really fun to film because it had such a sort of ‘cloak and dagger’ feeling about getting it made,” Billie continued.

“So, yeah, I have to lie a lot about anything to do with Doctor Who, it seems.”

Did you know that double spacing is a highly generational habit?

Yep – in 2019, even the APA formatting style (formerly a “staunch defender” of double spacing) was forced to concede that it’s a bit of an outdated approach. While it made sense for typewriters, it isn’t needed for more modern word processing programs.

But, new Google data shared with the New York Times has proven that even when tech stays the same, the way we communicate with it still varies by age.

And one emoji (those little digital images like 😭 or 😂) appears to be ageing even Gen Z.

Using anonymous records from over 665 million emojis used on Google’s keyboard, Gboard, a wilting rose emoji (🥀) was found to be the 93rd most common choice.

It was the fastest-rising emoji on the list.

The information given by Google didn’t break down usage by age. But the New York Times used Reddit forums to form “imperfect proxies” that reveal “broad generational trends”.

They found that 🥀’s usage was almost non-existent in the comments of fora r/Millennials (born 1981-1996) and r/GenX (1965-1980). Members of r/GenZ (1997-2012), meanwhile, used it in about 2% of replies.

But that figure shot up in r/GenAlpha, a generation born from roughly 2013 onward.

Among this online group, 🥀 usage was almost at 8% – nearly four times as much as their Gen Z elders.

It’s apparently so obscure among those old enough for tax returns and driving licenses that Reddit users have dedicated entire posts to working out its meaning.

It’s often used in place of a heartbreak emoji (💔), the online trend explainer site KnowYourMeme shared. It can be invoked to suggest mock-earnestness about unserious topics, or as a genuine attempt to convey loss or sadness.

As for why it’s become popular, that’s unusually well-documented. In a 2025 TikTok, a poster shared: “💔 lowkey starting to become too mainstream… I might just start using 🥀”.

Subsequent social media videos discussed the irrelevance of the wilting rose’s older cousin, the heartbreak emoji.

Commenter after commenter on a Reddit post about the wilting rose said the trend made them “feel old”.

Still, take heart – not only are 25-year-olds apparently more baffled by the emoji than teens, but Merriam-Webster’s dictionary suggests that the dead battery (🪫) symbol is already nipping at 🥀’s heels.

Over the weekend, there was something of a celebrity hair-mergency that we’re just about ready to talk about.

In recent history, Norway’s Erling Haaland has become one of the most talked-about footballers in the world thanks to his skills on the pitch (as seen in the World Cup earlier in the summer) his cheeky sense of humour and, of course, his iconic blond locks.

Ahead of his return to the pitch for Manchester City over the weekend, the Scandinavian striker decided to switch things up, and revealed on his Instagram that he’d buzzed off his infamous do.

He showed off the results of his new look on Instagram on Sunday, teasing his followers: “New season, new trim.”

“Short hair don’t care,” he added, first showing off a 90s boyband-esque curtains look, before unveiling the full buzz.

Suffice to say, the new look got plenty of attention on social media, with many admitting that Haaland’s new look was going to take them a minute to get used to…

Even his fellow footballers were left voicing their shock, with Jude Bellingham commenting a stunned: “No way.”

In a follow-up YouTube video, Haaland teased: “This beautiful blond hair, it’s time to let it go. I was thinking about doing this straight after the World Cup, but I was so busy, so I didn’t do it.

“The season starts now, so it’s time to get a fresh start and everything. The only thing is, Zlatan [Ibrahimović the Swedish player] told me, ‘never cut your hair, because your strength is in your hair’. So I’m a bit nervous.”

Fortunately, it wasn’t too much of a bad omen for Manchester City, who beat Bournemouth 2-1 while playing at home on Sunday afternoon…

Check out Erling Haaland’s hair update video in full – including his girlfriend Isabel Johansen’s reaction – below:

Let’s start this off with a hefty caveat: if you want to increase your longevity, eating well, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly have repeatedly proven to add years to your life.

Even the best mindset in the world likely can’t outperform those science-backed benefits.

However, some research suggests that how we think about ageing could impact our lifespan, too – seemingly independently of, though potentially leading to, a deliberate change in our lifestyle habits.

Starting in the 1970s, researchers began tracking hundreds of over-50s as part of the Ohio Longitudinal Study of Aging and Retirement (OLSAR).

They were asked to fill in surveys, including questions about their feelings on ageing.

The authors of a 2002 study compared those results with mortality rates within the group.

Up to 23 years after the first survey, those who’d had a more positive view of ageing decades earlier on lived 7.5 years longer on average than people with negative perceptions.

“This advantage remained after age, gender, socioeconomic status, loneliness, and functional health were included as covariates,” the researchers wrote. Participants’ will to live also seemed to matter here.

The authors added at the time: “Our study carries two messages… The discouraging one is that negative self-perceptions can diminish life expectancy; the encouraging one is that positive self-perceptions can prolong life expectancy”.

Again, this research doesn’t suggest you can cancel your gym membership and expect the same longevity results simply by embracing more positive thinking.

In fact, because this study only found a correlation and not a causal relationship, it didn’t even prove that positive thinking definitely led to greater longevity.

But this isn’t a zero-sum game.

More recent research has found that improvement in either physical or mental ability after 65 is not only possible, but relatively common (the study authors saw it in about 47% of the over-65s they studied for 12 years).

Those improvements seemed far more likely among those with a positive self-perception of ageing.

Maybe people less inclined to see older people as inherently frail might try harder to preserve their muscle mass, e.g., through strength training. Dr Eric Kim, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, told American Heart Association News: “There’s a connection between mindsets and health behaviours. One leads to the other”.

We don’t know for sure exactly where the link between positive thoughts about ageing and a longer life begins and ends – but using it to frame great lifestyle choices seems like a pretty solid plan.