Today was gloriously sunny and extremely hot - 30c by 2pm
The butterflies adored the hot air and spent the day flitting from tree to plant to flower in the muggy atmosphere.There were not so many bees but the ones I noticed seemed healthy and were busy dipping into various plants completely covering themselves in pollen [...]

27c at midday in the garden. Feel sure I am not the only one feeling the heat.
My gardening guru, Will Giles is most probably very hot and bothered at the moment. He is at Hidcote Manor in Gloucestershire to find out if his inspirational Exotic Garden has been selected as THE BEST UK GARDEN.
Will [...]

Tags: Exotics, Will Giles

The temperatures reached 28c in the garden today and my newly acquired beautiful cannas came out to welcome me back from warmer climes - they were almost as good as the ones I photographed in Spain. Don’t you just love those fabulous showy flowers and leaves - any idea which is the UK version?

I bought [...]

Tags: cannas

An amazing Morning Glory in the sunshine to welcome you back to my blog!
Thanks to everyone who has been posting encouraging messages about my Hampton Court and Eco Gardening Secrets from Africa stories - much appreciated. Comments from Dagny, Eric Bronson, Willem Von Cotthem and Intercontinental Gardener now up-loaded. Please do keep these [...]

Tags: Mediterranean plants, oleander

The most impressive stand I visited at Hampton Court was the Back to the Future Garden in the Climate Zone, designed and built soley by a unique charity called Send a Cow.
It was one of the busiest with visitors intrigued by a method of growing vegetables in a keyhole garden:

As you can see, this [...]

Tags: Vegetables

How apt these words from Mark Twain were today.
Woke up in Lewes to brilliant sunshine and temperatures of 20c but, as I took a train and carbon free boat ride to the Hampton Court Flower Show, the weather changed. Great big clouds moved across the sky casting a shadow over the 25 acre show [...]

Tags: Met Office

The Met Office have published the following key facts about climate change and gardening . These support everything that I talk about on this blog and at http://www.globalgardening.org
Faster: UK gardeners cut their lawns almost two weeks earlier than they did in 2001.
Slower: The yield of fruit trees is reduced when the buds fail to break [...]

Tags: Hampton Court, Met Office

After a great spell of lovely weather, today brought a mix of rain and strong winds. This played havoc with the men’s singles tennis final at Wimbledon and no doubt has challenged exhibitors building their show gardens at the Hampton Court Flower Show which opens in less than 24 hours.
The largest and most popular of [...]

Tags: Hampton Court

A fabulous English summer day with fluffy white clouds drifting across a bright blue sky.
For Americans, it is time to celebrate Independence Day.
For my family, it is a landmark that I would like to share with you.

Will, my 18 year old son, is leaving school. Like his sister, Amy, he has grown into a wonderful [...]

It was the hottest day of the year yesterday - 30c and very humid. One plant that is thriving in this tropical weather and blooming much earlier is the wonderful Dahlia - a key component for any exotic garden in the UK. There are around 50,000 different flowers - except blue apparently - which [...]

Tags: Exotics