Little Ray the Brugmasia has moved with me

This is Little Ray in his new home. I brought him back to Hayling from Cambridge with me in the van. He has grown very horizontal as he was confined in the dark hallway of my flat but now his free to grow up and up and hopefully produce me some flowers. When he arrived in the garden he was still in a pot that was much too small. With the result that he had to be stabilized by bricks to ensure he didn't topple over and break his arms.





I bought him a new pot, its plastic so im able to lift him in and out in winter. I also bought some Stoppa Slug tape to try and thwart the slugs and snails that will inevitably want to come and munch him. The tape is made of copper and will apparently deter the nasties that will try to eat Ray.


Inside the pot I started with some big stoned I took from the beach, then a mixture of soil rich in organic matter and perlite. I hope this will make him healthy and lead to flowers.

Ive moved home to Hayling

Not in Cambridge anymore but back on Costa del Hayling. Here are some photos of my mum's garden. Hope you enjoy them.

More Princess of Wales Glass House

Still in the Princess of Wales Glasshouse we saw a lizard basking by the pool. Can you spot him in the photo?




Amorphophallus Titanum about to flower


and a spent one


Fabulous tree fern sculpture from New Zealand


Zygo hybrids


Alittle Paph


Lovely Vanda orchids

The Waterlily house and the Princess of Wales Conservatory

The Waterlily house at Kew was built in 1852, it was then the widest single span glasshouse in the world, designed specifically to house the huge attraction of the age, the giant Amazonian waterlily. Although the glasshouse changed use in 991, it was converted back to its original use and today, it is the hottest and most humid environment at Kew, housing tropical ornamental aquatic plants and climbers.

Carnivorous plants hang in baskets and catch insects

The Princess of Wales Conservatory was named in honour of Augusta, Princess of Wales, who founded the gardens and opened by Diana, Princess of Wales in 1987. This is the most complex of Kew's public glasshouses has 10 different climate zones that are all computer controlled under one roof.

Fantastic Lithops collection

More Kew

Pineapple planting outside the Palm House


Statues at the gate of the Palm house. The Palm house was constructed in 1844 by Richard Turner the world's most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure. The Palm House was created specifically for the exotic palms being collected and introduced to Europe in early Victorian times. The elegant design with its unobstructed space for the spreading crowns of the tall palms was a perfect marriage of form and function. The technology was borrowed from shipbuilding and it can be seen that the design is essentially an upturned hull.

The unprecedented use of light but strong wrought iron 'ship's beams' made the great open span possible, giving room for the unhindered growth of tall specimen palms.For its tropical plants, the Palm House needed heat. Originally, the boilers were in the basement, heating water pipes under iron gratings on which the plants stood in great teak tubs, or in clay pots on benches.

The smoke from the boilers was led away through pipes in a tunnel under the Palm House Pond to the elegant Italianate Campanile smoke stack 150 m (490 ft) away. The tunnel also housed a small railway which transported coal the the Palm House boilers. However, the basement flooded in 1848, it took several years to lower the level of the water by pumps. In 1853 the floor level of the boiler room was raised, which had the unfortunate effect of reducing the amount of draught to the flues, badly affecting the efficiency of the heating system and making some parts of the Palm House too

Canna Lillies




Some giant leaves


The water vapor pours from the ceiling pipes at intervals to keep humidity high


Bromeliads


Some sort of Hibiscus?


Beautiful Frangipani

Kew Gardens

Construction on the the Kew temporate house was started in 1860. Due to a series of complications such as the contactor becoming bankrupt the glasshouse was not completed until 1898. In 1861 the contents of the old 'New Zealand' house were transfered into the temporate house as was some Australian plants from the 'Orangery and palms from the 'Palm House'The admiring public were first admitted in May 1863, when the Temperate House was barely two-thirds finished.

In 1977, over a hundred years after the building was finally completed, a full restoration was started. The Temperate House is a Grade 1 listed building, so scrupulous care needed to be taken to keep the integrity of the original design. Modern heating technology keeps the building frost free, at about 6-7°C over the winter. It uses heat exchangers situated in the basements of the octagons, with intense heat piped from the main boilerhouse a quarter of a mile away.

My favourite Brugmansias in the temporate house.






Iconic Kew staircase


Cycad palm


Strelitzia I wish my little one will grow to look like


Koy carp pool


The Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop Walkway, it is 18 metres high


The lake


Making friends with the geese