Whilst visiting Palma on the island of Mallorca, we had a visit to the Arab Baths in the old town.  Dating to 10th or 11th century, these are the only arab baths remaining in the city. as well as the preserved baths, the former orchard is now a delightful garden. The former bath house, there would have been a rectangular pool in the centre which has been filled in. Looking up into the ceiling with small window/vents in the roof Stepping outside into a small but delightful garden filled with palms and other exotics A twin washingtonia, looks lik ..read more

Growing up in the tropics the warmest temperature I've ever experienced was 34C (93F) in the depths of summer (albeit paired up with oppressive levels of humidity). Who would know then that I would experience 40C (104F) of all places in the UK? That's what just happened Tuesday last week when the heatwave that was all over Europe peaked here. Thankfully from there temperatures have since dropped down to what are considered normal summer levels here, otherwise a lot of our plants would have been toast. Heat stressed Schefflera taiwaniana Tuesday 19th of July We think temperatures "only ..read more

No gardening blog year would be complete (I know we did skip blogging a year or two) without us giving an update on our tiny front garden at least once. It all started in 2014 when we finally sorted out our front garden and several changes have happened since. Fast forward to now, the plants are much bigger and we have added more pots to the mix Agave salmiana is the star of the bunch, for obvious reasons The three nolinas have all done well but the one that remained in the smallest pot unsurprisingly had the slowest progress so we gave it a bigger pot earlier in the year and underpl ..read more

Last year we posted about out little collection of Mangave displayed on our top patio. Time for an update but first a little rescue story: Mangave 'Mission to Mars' Last weekend we spotted Mangaves on the clearance corner of our local nursery, sold for £1 each. There were several available but we only picked up three from the bunch. They were from a batch of Mangaves that were in their main sales polytunnel before, but they didn't fare well during the winter left in the same spot and didn't recover fast enough in the spring. So off to the clearance corner they went. Mangav ..read more

 A few days ago the photo below came up on my Facebook timeline, from around 2015/2016 (I think)... It's quite a significant photo in the sense that it led to the more familiar succulent pot display we do nowadays on our top patio. The display above was fun to do, and perhaps quirky enough that it actually made it to a gardening magazine. However, it also made me cringe looking at it shortly after....can't believe I displayed two agaves so prominently in ordinary plastic pots, and to be published too!! Perhaps it wasn't too bad, after all we had fun doing it then. But it led to several ..read more

Let's have a quick look at a special group of Scheffleras with no ID growing in our utility/propagation area. Their background is explained below. A few years ago we visited Taiwan and had the chance to look around a few towns just outside the capital Taipei. The island is very accessible by car via their excellent road network but you can easily get a glimpse of rural life from nearby towns just outside the capital using their metro system. Taiwan has an amazing array of flora that has provided the world with so many interesting plants for the garden. The genus Schefflera (or now known as ..read more

The hard landscaping of our top patio has pretty much been unchanged since we moved into our place back in 2005. The paving is composed of mainly thick concrete paving slabs and bricks arranged to a pattern. It's not the most elegant nor impressive of materials but they were laid solidly, aged well, and served the purpose.  Having just moved into this property then, the priority for both budget and time was to sort out the house rather than the hard landscaping of the top patio. It wasn’t broke so why fix it? As it was until last weekend Through the years it had been playing in o ..read more

Continuing on from our previous post regarding the Fern House at Garfield Park Conservatory is a feature on the first section you'll see when you go in the conservatory: the Palm House. The vignette of palms and related complementary understory planting that greets you is a fantastic preview of what else is in store... Palm House at Garfield Park Conservatory Much like the Fern House, the path divides into two that will lead you into the other portions of the conservatory. The Palm House, as it's namesake suggests consists of a collection of tropical and subtropical palms of ..read more

 The Garfield Park Conservatory has several botanical sections with the Palm House and Fern House occupying the largest spaces. The smaller ones are no less remarkable and the best of the smaller sections is the Aroid House. Let's have a look: Aroid House at Garfield Park Conservatory As the name suggests, this section is all about different kinds of aroids, planted together for a beautifully naturalistic and cohesive display. It is a showcase of different leaf sizes of aroids, from the minute to the largest, together creating a lush, jungle feel. The section has a centr ..read more

Cyphomandra corymbiflora, sometimes called a hardy tree tomato, has been growing in our garden for well over a decade, going through the poor winter of 2010.  We have found it pretty tough, although a very late frost last year did it some damage. Fortunately it recovered - fairly late in the season - and a mild winter for 2021-22 has helped it on its recovery.  At this time of year it starts to put on its display of blooms, one of just a handful of plants flowering in the garden despite the season, we missed this display last year as it was in recovery mode but its back. We grew th ..read more