High Summer in the garden

People often ask me why is Abbotsbury so successful at growing half hardy plants outside all year round without a  roof like the Eden Project down in Cornwall. Well, there is a sort of roof. We have hundreds of Holm Oak trees, Quercus ilex. They are evergreen and retain their leaves in winter thus helping trap warm air and keep radiation frost out of the garden – a bit like a giant blanket over the garden in winter.

In the summer we have the sea just down the road which regulates the temperatures and also produces ‘Sea Frets’ or ‘Sea fog’ which can come rolling in and linger over the gardens providing humidity- a good growing requirement for many plants.

Us gardeners and farmers really can’t complain about the weather this summer as it has been nigh on perfect with warm sunny days and we have even had some rain at night. So many plants have flowered  their hearts out this year, starting in the spring with the magnificent Rhododendron display and now through the summer the herbaceous borders have looked fantastic.

On my office wall I have tried the annual ‘Morning Glory’ which constantly  welcomes me as its flowers un-ravel in the morning light and fade away by lunch time.It is a native to Mexico and central America.

This year we thought we would support our local Agricultural ‘Melplash show’ at West Bay. It was a fun day out meeting tourists and some of our regular visitors. We sold quite a lot of our plants and gave out leaflets telling people of our forthcoming event in the autumn – The Floodlit evenings, yes they are coming around again, no sooner have we put away the lanterns and candles then we are starting to think about getting it all out again,where does the time go !!