Costa Del Portsmouth (UK) 2024

[UK_Palms]

Before reaching Southsea, I stopped in Cosham for about 10 minutes to see a few of the palms there. Unfortunately I was short on time and I only had about an hour in total to photograph stuff in Portsmouth.

Onto the main esplanade where the big CIDP’s are…

 

The bigger Southsea Robusta…

 

Butia Odorata’a…

Brahea Armata

Phoenix Theothrastii x 4 (planted tiny and engulfed in weeds).

Huge fruit production on a lot of the bigger CIDP’s and seedlings in places…

A smallish Bougainvillea growing…

Surprised how many Echium Pininana are established in the undergrowth near the seafront. I hadn’t seen them in Portsmouth really until this summer. The invasion continues…

 

This Echium Candicans is going to have a massive flower show next spring! I do wonder whether it was even planted, or took over from the mass colonisation going on, although that seems limited to E. Pininana from what I can see.

GTA Portsmouth

 

Sadly a few big palms that I went to visit today have been cut down. I won’t return here for quite a few years now, having been several times in recent years. So until then.

 

 

 

[Harry’s Palms]

Really nice pictures , thank you for sharing. Harry

[UK_Palms]

It has not been a good summer this year, although it has been rather dry in southern and eastern England. The first half of summer was particularly cool and cloudy, but also quite dry. The second half of summer has been much warmer fortunately, but similarly cloudy and dry. Rather benign/boring to be honest.

Overall it has been a very cool, cloudy but dry summer. Not ideal for palm growth really. It has been the coolest and dullest summer in about a decade for me here, since at least 2015. Nights have been pretty mild due to all that cloud cover however, so palm growth has likely not been impacted too much.

The grass at Southsea on Monday following a lacklustre summer…

 

[gurugu]

Pretty much the same here. Summer began in mid July. And, despite one day above 32⁰C, almost 40⁰C for several hours, it has been a dull summer. Cloudy, cool, not enough rain and warm nights.

The previous one year and a half or so, has set a record on rainy days, but not much water. Soil is rather dry nowadays.

That hot day in early August, even burnt many leaves of my Viburnum lucidum hedge. As well as those of many other plants.

Keep on posting palmy UK pictures. I enjoy watching them a lot.

Thanks.

[UK_Palms]

On 8/28/2024 at 3:18 PM, gurugu said:

Pretty much the same here. Summer began in mid July. And, despite one day above 32⁰C, almost 40⁰C for several hours, it has been a dull summer. Cloudy, cool, not enough rain and warm nights.

The previous one year and a half or so, has set a record on rainy days, but not much water. Soil is rather dry nowadays.

That hot day in early August, even burnt many leaves of my Viburnum lucidum hedge. As well as those of many other plants.

Keep on posting palmy UK pictures. I enjoy watching them a lot.

Thanks.

I had 30C / 86F on Wednesday, but again quite a bit of cloud cover. The story of this summer really. The highest temperature this summer for the UK is only 35C / 95F, back when you had the 40C day under the same airmass. In total only 4 days over 32C / 90F for me here since June. Not cold, but nowhere near as warm as 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018 etc.

However it has been the warmest summer on record for Eastern Europe, including southeast Europe, and also the Scandinavian arctic. Whereas it has been anomalously cool for the UK and France especially. The coolest summer since 2015. I believe this is mostly due to a lack of Azores High influence, especially during the first half of summer. The high pressure and heat has been focused out further east instead. Look at the monthly anomalies… 👀

 

October - May was the wettest 8 month period on record for the UK. Similar for you guys in northern Spain too. A wet autumn, wet winter and a wet spring. It was very wet up until May and then the taps just shut off down south when summer arrived. Temperatures were way below average, but still very dry. A lot of places had less than 10mm / 0.3 inches in June. And it has been a dry summer overall.

However parts of western Scotland are experiencing their wettest summer on record. We are still in this ‘wet’ cycle technically, which has been going since last year, so it shows how dry southeast England is in summer. Very little rainfall apart from the odd thunderstorm in July, even with a ‘wet’ synoptic / background signal.

785mm / 30 inches at Achnagart in western Scotland this summer. For them up north it really has been a year without a summer!

An enormous 700mm / 28 inches of rainfall on the Isle of Skye this August apparently! That is probably a UK record.

For comparison, central London is on 19mm / 0.74 inches for August… about 50 x less rainfall than the Isle of Skye!!! So worlds apart.

 

Also I will be travelling to Devon and Cornwall in 2 weeks time to see the palms and gardens. So there will be plenty of photographic updates! I need mid-September to be warm and dry! 👍

[Foxpalms]

Will you be visiting the lost gardens of heligan? I think there are tall robustas there.

That was from 2016 when they transplanted it from the Eden project, so they must be significantly taller now.

[pillred]

On 8/27/2024 at 3:40 AM, UK_Palms said:

Before reaching Southsea, I stopped in Cosham for about 10 minutes to see a few of the palms there. Unfortunately I was short on time and I only had about an hour in total to photograph stuff in Portsmouth.

Onto the main esplanade where the big CIDP’s are…

 

The bigger Southsea Robusta…

 

Butia Odorata’a…

Brahea Armata

Phoenix Theothrastii x 4 (planted tiny and engulfed in weeds).

Huge fruit production on a lot of the bigger CIDP’s and seedlings in places…

A smallish Bougainvillea growing…

Surprised how many Echium Pininana are established in the undergrowth near the seafront. I hadn’t seen them in Portsmouth really until this summer. The invasion continues…

 

This Echium Candicans is going to have a massive flower show next spring! I do wonder whether it was even planted, or took over from the mass colonisation going on, although that seems limited to E. Pininana from what I can see.

GTA Portsmouth

 

Sadly a few big palms that I went to visit today have been cut down. I won’t return here for quite a few years now, having been several times in recent years. So until then.

 

 

 

It is amazing to see that Bouganvillea, I had no idea they could be grown in England even on the south coast, it looks well established too.

[DoomsDave]

Whoa @UK_Palms thanks for sharing!

Portsmouth is a couple degrees of north latitude south of Saskatoon Saskatchewan Canada! 50 N as opposed to 52 north.

[UK_Palms]

12 hours ago, pillred said:

It is amazing to see that Bouganvillea, I had no idea they could be grown in England even on the south coast, it looks well established too.

East London has the best looking Bougainvillea that has been posted in the UK. Fairly mild winters, the warmest summers and one of the driest areas of the UK there. I haven’t seen a photo of it since 2021 however. It likely had a much better bloom in 2022.

I photographed this one in Torquay, Devon a few years back. The usual Spectabilis type (like the big one above) is leaf hardy down to about -1C / 30F, however the stems won’t die or get stripped back to ground level until about -4.5C / 24F on bigger established plants. Death at root level around -5C / 23F to -6C / 21F for bigger plants.

 

Bougainvillea Glabra in west central London in October 2022. The leaves won’t take any frost really (unlike Spectabilis) with -1C / 30F nuking all the foliage. Anything below -3C / 27F will zap the entire vine back to ground level. Death of entire plant at around -5C / 23F. So this variety is about 1-2C / 2-4F less hardy than Spectabilis.

[pillred]

On 10/13/2024 at 1:43 PM, UK_Palms said:

East London has the best looking Bougainvillea that has been posted in the UK. Fairly mild winters, the warmest summers and one of the driest areas of the UK there. I haven’t seen a photo of it since 2021 however. It likely had a much better bloom in 2022.

I photographed this one in Torquay, Devon a few years back. The usual Spectabilis type (like the big one above) is leaf hardy down to about -1C / 30F, however the stems won’t die or get stripped back to ground level until about -4.5C / 24F on bigger established plants. Death at root level around -5C / 23F to -6C / 21F for bigger plants.

 

Bougainvillea Glabra in west central London in October 2022. The leaves won’t take any frost really (unlike Spectabilis) with -1C / 30F nuking all the foliage. Anything below -3C / 27F will zap the entire vine back to ground level. Death of entire plant at around -5C / 23F. So this variety is about 1-2C / 2-4F less hardy than Spectabilis.

Thank you for posting I'm both surprised and amazed it looks like they are all well-established, I can't believe they have survived the vagaries of the British climate.

[Foxpalms]

On 10/13/2024 at 1:43 PM, UK_Palms said:

East London has the best looking Bougainvillea that has been posted in the UK. Fairly mild winters, the warmest summers and one of the driest areas of the UK there. I haven’t seen a photo of it since 2021 however. It likely had a much better bloom in 2022.

I photographed this one in Torquay, Devon a few years back. The usual Spectabilis type (like the big one above) is leaf hardy down to about -1C / 30F, however the stems won’t die or get stripped back to ground level until about -4.5C / 24F on bigger established plants. Death at root level around -5C / 23F to -6C / 21F for bigger plants.

 

Bougainvillea Glabra in west central London in October 2022. The leaves won’t take any frost really (unlike Spectabilis) with -1C / 30F nuking all the foliage. Anything below -3C / 27F will zap the entire vine back to ground level. Death of entire plant at around -5C / 23F. So this variety is about 1-2C / 2-4F less hardy than Spectabilis.

I have alexandra and Bougainvillea peruviana. peruviana seems more cold sensitive to me though it is growing in probably the mildest spot in the garden so it's hard to tell.