Important - Will's Exotic Garden blog is moving to new site...

To all followers of my blog:

Please read!

I have just moved my blog from blogger and onto wordpress, so that it can be integrated better into my new website (Which can be found at http://www.exoticgarden.com/ All shiny and new, check it out!)

So there will be no more blogs here on blogger domain, they will all be coming from http://www.exoticgarden.com/blog . As I will be blogging over at wordpress you need to stay up to date so all you need to do is add this URL (http://www.exoticgarden.com/blog) to your blog reader as it is not automatic.

For those of you reading this on Blogger – please can you update your feed URL, it’s really easy, just Go to your dashboard reading list and click ‘add’ new blog – and paste in this URL: http://www.exoticgarden.com/blog it’s that easy!!

If you don’t update your feed you won’t see my new blogs – so please update!
Don’t forget to have a look at the new website, it’s totally new and up to date – let me know what you think of it.

The joy of late spring and long evenings...

I adore this time of year, with such long evenings and (occasional) warm nights – well, this is Britain after all! A slow walk around the garden at about 9pm when the garden is lit by the light of the clouds which give off an eerie pinkish glow, that can only be enjoyed at this time of year - it often seems to become lighter for a while before the light eventually fades away by about 10.30pm. The scents in the garden also seem at their strongest, especially at the moment with the many Cordylines in full bloom. During the day they are equally alluring with their billowing heads of tiny creamy white flowers with the sound of countless bees pervading the air.



Towards the back of the house is a vertical waterfall some 3m high by 2m wide that spills down a flint wall into a dark pool below where a few ghost koi can be seen in the shadows. In the picture below you can see the corner of the waterfall with a Dicksonia antarctica to the right. Above is a clump of Polygonum sachalinense or Giant knotweed. This is a massive plant nearly 4m tall. The roots are contained by a very solid flint wall so it cannot escape...



There are so many things coming into flower at the moment that a veritable explosion is taking place in the garden. One in particular I want to show you is Hymenocalis littoralis from Mexico and Guatemala. This delicate beauty is in full flower in a terracotta pot on my doorstep where I can enjoy its delicateness every time I walk past. What a lovely time of year this is...

Flaming or soggy wet June- take your choice...

It has been a mad rush here at the Exotic Garden (www.exoticgarden.com) over the last few weeks getting the garden ready for its official opening on June 21st, though due to popular demand I have opened the garden to a few Private groups already. Last week, we had a group of twenty seven keen gardeners from Switzerland and another group from Birmingham. Today, Norwich Cathedral School is holding an art class in the garden – ducking in and out of the showers. The busy season has now begun with a vengeance!

The thing about this style of gardening is that although it has a back bone of hardy exotics (Palms/bamboos/Hostas etc) to carry it all the way through the winter, the more tender planting cannot be planted out until I am pretty sure the cold knights have finished, around late May to early June here in Norwich, Norfolk.



Much to most visitors’ surprise – I also consider the common house plant Tradescantia fluminensis hardy, surviving the vagaries of an East Anglian winter. In the garden it dies to the ground reappearing in Early April. Tradescantia x andersoniana is very hardy plant now in full bloom with glorious rich-purple flower. Though considered a fairly common plant, it never-the-less gives a good splash of intense colour at this time of year.



Most traditional gardens with herbaceous borders and roses usually reach a peek from May through to early July, and then sadly go over. Tropicals on the other hand, power up to a crescendo from late July, all the way through to October, when most traditional planting has well and truly finished. Although many of the plants are comparatively small when planted out such as Strobilanthes dyerianus (Persian Shield) with its silvery-metallic purplish-pink leaves and Solenostemon (Coleus those who aren’t aware of its name change). With a good dose of blood fish and bone, they soon grow into very bushy plants all joining together by early July.



Another tender perennial I grow in pots during the summer months is Thunbergia gregorii with its intense, day glow orange flowers. Unlike the annual Thunbergia alata, this beauty can be kept from year to year, overwintered at about 5C (40F)



A plant that self-seeded in the garden some years ago is the American Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana, with its deliciously pink flowers followed in late summer by almost black fruit.



For about five years I have been growing Lomatia ferruginea, a fabulous plant indigenous to Chile. It is a beautiful shrub or small tree with stiff, fern-like foliage, now in bloom for the first time in the garden and a beautiful sight to behold, with its almost waxy flowers about 1ins across, which look as though they are going to last for many weeks.





I hope you all enjoyed a good rainstorm in the last few days – we certainly needed it. Have a great gardening week ahead and enjoy the long summer evenings. Light until gone 10pm – fabulous!