A jaunt to Guernsey

  A whistlestop trip to Guernsey to do an RHS regional lecture for Floral Guernsey. The island once had a thriving horticultural industry (cut flowers, tomatoes, veg) but now rather sadly reduced although the Raymond Evison Clematis empire is the bright spot. Lots of derelict glasshouses (reminded me of post-communist Bulgaria in the 1990s). Otherwise thriving. A very mild climate so enormous camellias everywhere and lots of exotica. Giant echiums have clearly naturalised. A lot of good gardening going on, but no 'great gardens' - this is not Cornwall, but fantastic scope for interesting planting on a small scale. I went to one private garden which I  loved, Jane and David Russell's Mille Fleurs. They live at the top of a slope with a borrowed landscape of woodland and a resevoir.

It felt very tropical, not in an overt self-conscious way, but in lots of little touches like having a Clematis armandii growing into a tree, which could have been a hoya in a tree in southern India.

    Shady, woodland, a lot of it, with a ground flora of primroses and lots of interesting self-seeding - all very un-English, even palm Trachycarpus fortunei self-seeding. A tree fern draped with epiphytic ferns (they arrived with it form Aus) - again, I felt i could have been in India.

   The lovely Luma apiculata thrives and self-sows too. If humans suddenly disappeared from here, the island would rapidly cover in exotic woodland I am sure - like Tresco in that way.

Loved this treatment of the patch you don't want to mow or to have grass around a tree.

And with minimal frost (if lots of wind) you can grow giant aeoniums on the dustbin box, and hardly ever need water them. Some Narcissus 'Hawera' in here too.