Garden Centre

Saturday, November 15, 2008

All Seasons Garden - Tropics in November

It’s been a while since I did one of these, and because I happened to be walking past a town-house in a rare moment of sunshine a couple of days ago, and peered into the garden to see what was there, I got the shock of my life, in a good way. I really couldn't believe my eyes!

A couple of things to say about this: first there is obviously a micro-climate around this particular area of South London (here’s a surprising tip – colleges of adult education and public swimming pools often create micro-climates where frost rarely happens because they are heated at night and chuck out enough warm air to stop ground frost for nearly a quarter mile radius, assuming the area isn’t windy) and second, the house-holder or (more likely) the house-holders gardener, has very green fingers.

Even so, this is impressive, it could be a garden in July. My fuchsia is still flowering but with nothing like the intensity of this one, and that stunning structural plant as a key feature make the whole garden seem tropical in the extreme.

Most of us can’t get away with such large tender plants, but palms are hardy right up as far as Norwich now, while everybody can have a bit of winter colour from heathers, even when there’s snow on the ground.

Labels: structural plants, town garden, tropical garden

The All Seasons Gardener at 10:21 AM

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