From Stone in Dartford to Swindon to Lullingstone this magnificent pea relation from the mountains of Morocco – has been laden with crisply bright yellow conical flowers. Big and small specimens are falling bum over breast, virtually collapsing with the sheer weight of bloomage! Perhaps readers the last continental style cold winter was beneficial to this hardy plant? – like the double flowered Japanese cherries – that decorated the pathways and grassland – wedding confetti style and the humongous mount of blooms on the Roses this year.

Often grown against a sheltered sunny wall or fence – the trio in the miniature Morocco at Lullingstone have thrived well away from a wall – with NO WINTER damage whatsoever! I have never seen so many flowers and the odour of pineapple crossed with quince heavily wafting yet skipping like a rampantly overheating kangaroo through the garden is sumptuous. This week I’ve regularly been opening my mouth, trying to chew on the scented air molecules! This smell once intravenously in the depth of your lungs becomes part of you.  In The World Garden – the smell has no boundaries and can be smelt from far flung climes such as Tasmania and Chilean Patagonia! Even a visitor last Sunday in Ireland commented on the smell.

The Pineapple Broom was given the award of merit in 1984 and it’s not surprising – The exquisite, clusters of rich flowers coupled with the greyish-green silky sheen leaves is adorable. The urge to run these soft caressing leaves across your face is irresistible.

Readers you’ve got to have one!

Big Hugs,
Tom x

I was then overpowered by the aromatic gorgeousness of a carpet of thyme – my soul temporarily left my native county of Kent.

Anyway I digress – I want this week to lightly banter about the amazing bearded Irises in the World Garden – they have seemingly loved the cold winter and have looked splendiferous this early summer. I have to horticulturally heartily recommend the three types of bearded iris in the attached picture – Iris ‘Kent Pride’ on the left with coppery hues, Iris ‘Blue Shimmer’ with light blue dazzling colorations and Iris ‘Black Swan’ with black-blue tones. The Bearded Irises have been stunning this year and a bonus is the sweetly crispy fragrance that tickles your nostrils.

The species in the garden have also done wonders including the white and purple blue Iris sibirica – from chilly billy Siberia and the dazzlingly golden yellow – Iris variegata from Hungary. The trick with good husbandry is to plant in a well drained alkaline soil in full sun and to partly expose the fleshy ginger like rhizomes and your well away.

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Big Floral Hugs,

Tom x

Now full of some 1,621 different types of cacti, succulents & Bromeliads this unassuming from the outside lean-to south facing polytunnel structure has exploded internally with saucy lavishly spiny growth & an absolutely orgasmic, stroke kaleidoscopic firework display of flower power.

I appreciate readers that Cacti aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. They can sit on your windowsill – a blob of spines that always seem to draw blood when you go and fetch the fairy liquid to do the washing up! But when they flower – you go weak at the knees – I’ve nearly fainted at least a dozen times this week – dangerously swaying to and fro overhanging these prickly beasts! Heaps of them when in flower are also deliciously crisply fragrance especially at evening tide – sumptuous. Readers it’s all too much, even typing now on my bacteria endowed laptop keypad – steam is appearing between my frictioned fingertips and sweating keypad – Cacti do arouse great excitement within my green blooded soul.


  

My favourite cacti in flower right now are for sure the Echinopsis from South America – in particular Echinopsis oxygona from Brazil (see photo). You’d never think that a flower so large and wonderfully frilly could be produced from such an aggressively spikey, ridged swollen stem. Awesome! Each flower on the cacti we have lasts c. 3 days. On the husbandry front all of the cacti are pretty easy: Minimum of 5 Celsius in the winter in a well lit position. No watering from November to March, start watering in April till end of October, whenever your gritty well drained compost dries out, water. Once a month feed with Tomorite – That’s it!

Readers, cacti are not difficult to grow– so many garden centres now stock a good range of cacti in small pots – and we have a few for sale here at The World Garden. Also really thriving in the ‘Hot & Spikey’ House – The conservatory classic – Bird of Paradise – Strelitzia Reginae – Couldn’t resist a picture to show you!

Off to the sandy sea shores of Japan now – to hand pluck a few stems and hopefully brittle roots of the notoriously pernicious Pink Field Bindweed.

Big Hugs as ever to you dear readers,
Tom x